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phoenixcatch7 · 11 months ago

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Just finished oracle of ages!!! Good game, good game. I have Thoughts.

I actually really enjoyed the story and characters! I figured going into the oracle games that it'd be a simple, cliché story, not much nuance or depth, and with Seasons that's basically what I got: din gets fridged in a crystal at the start of the game -> go get her -> you need a set of maguffins to do so -> fight big monster.

Admittedly it was the first game, which meant less story, but even if I hadn't linked (heh) the games for extra end game content Ages just did so much more.

Unlike din, naryu has someone else willing to help her. Ralph (the twinkiest twink to ever twink) was a young man who was her devoted friend (there was a weird crush triangle thing going on with him, Link and naryu, I always felt like I was missing subtext) and, spoilers for a 20yo game?? I guess?

He was the dethroned descendant of the ancient queen Ami. His family definitely still have big money though. He was pretty clearly supposed to be a comic relief character with a twist, but I ended up really liking him! He was over enthusiastic and over confident, but not unintelligent, a decent swordsman (I think) who was incredibly loyal to his friends and held some deep rooted responsibility for the people his family used to rule. Kind, determined, good with kids and people in general, he was terrified but willing to sacrifice his very existence to save the people.

The world building was also great! I don't think I've ever played a zelda game without gorons, but hylians were in short supply. To be expected outside of hyrule, I guess? Anyway, there were also lizard people on an island (tokay!) whose entire deal was.. A bit outdated? Rude, brazen and aggressive to outsiders, they lived in crude huts, worshipped things they didn't quite understand and were generally the old Hollywood stereotype of an isolated jungle tribe.

There was also, like, zora racism? There's a zora village underwater, and one of them was like 'us sea zora are nothing like those river zora 😒' which handily solved both my question of if the river/ocean zora divide was canon or fanon and the relationships between the two. Are they even the same species?? It just makes the rito even weirder but hey lmao. In all honesty I was pretty sick of the river zora at that point too, I swear there were two of them popping up in every screen that had even a sliver of water deeper than the knees and they CONSTANTLY shot fireballs istg they were such a pain. They were literally everywhere and so hard to kill.

On the plus side mermaid suit ^u^!! A dungeon item (the mermaids cave), the item had a desc like 'the skin of the mythical beast' which raised SO many more questions than it answered. The zora were delighted to see a young mermaid! The use of 'maid' implied either a) the zora all thought link was a girl and he didn't correct them (eyo genderqueer androgeny) b) the zora don't subscribe to gender the way humans do (eyo genderqueer androgeny) or c) all fish people look like mermaids regardless of their specific gender (eyo genderqueer androgeny). It literally could have been all three who knows. Maybe one day we'll actually meet a mermaid in zelda.

Also, there's a mini game in Seasons, which I played first, the subrosian dance. It's a pretty popular part of their culture, it's got music, it's got professional dancers. In Ages, you find the gorons doing the exact same dance! Rosa, a subrosian performer you meet in Seasons, is also there, saying her people's dance is better (tbf it is), but if you go to the past you'll find the gorons actually invented the dance first, as part of their love of games and entertainment, and you can talk to two subrosians who are talking about bringing the dance home! It's so interesting to see little details like this, where the travelling subrosians visited their fellow cave dweller lava eating people centuries ago, brought it back home where it exploded in popularity and centuries later became refined as a whole folk dance with spinning and everything, with the people forgetting where it came from, where the gorons keep their dance exactly the same (having to do a rhythm game without rhythm is hard).

Actually, there was so much political fantasy drama going on in the past?? Like, you've got the childless queen taking care of her people, a budding village and a few more settlements across the kingdom. Early in her reign she tried to build a tower to act as a beacon to her fiancé lost at sea, which is a romance story all on its own, but it was cut short (maybe because of funding?). Centuries in the future, it's just ruins. You've got people living on an ACTIVE VOLCANO starting a symmetry cult around a artifact called 'tuni nut' which, presumably, stabilises the volcano? And it's entirely cut off from the outside world. The goron elder is crushed under rocks and their economy is failing. The zora king got poisoned and he's about to die without an heir because a witch turned the fairy queen into an octorock, but the man in charge of the only cure refuses to hand it over until someone passes his tests.

Most of it is solved relatively easily by link and a copious amount of time travel, but the thing with the ruling queen only gets worse. When the evil witch invades the kingdom, she possesses the oracle of ages, naryu (who's a little implied to be the Actual Creation Goddess Naryu reincarnated) and travels back to the past to bring about an age of despair in the present. She does this by slipping into the royal court and befriending the queen as a serving girl, rising up the ranks to become her closest advisor and corrupting her (pretty sure mind control magic is used a li'l). She convinces her to restart the black tower project, pouring all of her and the towns resources into it - forcibly conscripting every able bodied worker and working them to the bone, all while monsters start to circle the tower. With all the fear and resentment, it quickly becomes a beacon of dark energy, a perfect focal point to perform black magics.

Link (and Ralph) end up in the past and get hauled in front of the queen, with possessed naryu at her side, who basically jeers at them and ensures the queen won't listen to their untrustworthy lies. The townsfolk are getting increasingly stressed as their village fills with rubble and their men are worked to the point of collapse. Armed guards start to appear to keep the workers under control. Eventually, Ralph uncovers a hole in the guard rotation, and he and link sneak into the palace through a secret entrance Ralph oh so casually knows about. Link and naryu fight, but with stupendous timing the queen walks in to see naryu collapsed on the floor, Link standing over her with a sword. She calls for the guards, but before anyone can react, the witch, banished form her first vessel, leaps into the queen herself instead. Ralph shoves past the arriving guards and into naryus arms, while link moves in from of them. The queen orders the guards to attack, but naryu, reawakened, pulls them back to the present in the nick of time. In the present, the black tower is magically growing, reaching higher and higher into the sky, terrifying the people of the city.

Then! Ralph, who at this point is suspiciously invested now his actual goal is completed and naryu is safe, vows to go back into time again, away from naryu, to live under the now evil queen and bring protection and comfort to the villagers as a direct act of resistance, because the witch is feeding on their sorrow to power an unknown ritual (link knows. Link, canonically, has told nobody). So this teen in fancy robes and cape goes back to the oppressed, poverty stricken town under the thumb if someone who wants him dead and lives there for weeks if not months dedicating himself to supporting the village and bringing people's hopes and spirits back up, presumably while living out of someone else's wooden hut. In the middle of a literal depression inducing miasma that's sapping everyone's joy and will to live.

That just. Takes insane strength of character. That's a feat of pure, distilled, compassion as anarchy.

Link's off bouncing between past and present doing dungeons and solving easier issues through either sword or magic item, but Ralph is out here doing the long hard slog for little reward.

Link finally returns to the black tower completed, affecting even the people of the present, and, preparations complete, rushes to the past. Ralph is nowhere be seen. Talking to the villagers reveals several have a crush on him, but an old man saw him running for the tower, sword drawn. There's a man pacing by the entrance, who saw the kid run in, tried to stop him. He said Ralph said that he no longer cared what happened to him. That the man realised that Ralph had quietly succumbed to the same curse of despair they all were under. Link fights his way up to the top of the tower, where Ralph confronts the evil queen, sword at her heart, but every step she takes into it, he steps back. The witch laughs. She asks him if he's really willing to write himself out of existence - being the queens descendant, and all. Ralph leaps back, into links chest. He's shaking and stuttering, but he lunges, and is knocked out in one blow. The queen now asks link the same question: is he willing to erase Ralph? If he strikes her, kills her, the queen will die, childless, and he will never live. She leaves, and link rushes to Ralph. He's awake but unresponsive, defeated. With a heavy heart, Link leaves him to chase the queen. It's naryu who finds him, brings him out of the tower.

When the witch is defeated, the curse is lifted, and Ralph is once more energetic and kind. He's a little quieter now, though, sticking close to naryu. For all he was a loud and headstrong kid, I gotta say I was very impressed.

He would have made a good king.

#This started out as a general overview of ooa/oos but quickly devolved into a story about a side character #His side story was a better character arc than totks entire main plot fr #Like I didn't think much of him at first but he really grew on me #There's also the fact that Ralph's existence proves that Ami did eventually get the romance she deserved #But whether the fiance one day returned thanks to the finished tower lighthouse or if she one day remarried I don't know #I like the former option though. A happy ending from all the heartbreak and sorrow #loz #legend of zelda #loz link #loz ooa #loz oos #oracle of ages #oracle of seasons #ooa ralph #loz ralph #Unrelated but I think the oracle games are better than lttp just. Gameplay wise #Like the graphics and frame rate and colour pallet was much worse but it's so much better made #The dialogue is smoother the area transitions are cohesive the maps are a MILLION times better the sprites are easier to read #Playing lttp now so.#In oos/ooa you could change the text speed and in lttp it's so sloooooowwwww #tloz #long post #the legend of zelda

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dors-ee · 2 months ago

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Thanks to Biz barclay video about whales i've been doing some thinking about references/metaphors for timebomb/Jinx.

It started with Moby dick for timebomb, and the matter of perspectives (like his level of obsession, the unhealthiness, should he let her go or not, etc. Is she his Moby Dick? Under a certain perspective maybe. Is she just victim too or is she actively dragging him down. etc etc. I need to explore that.)

And I ended up on what i'm going to develop (putting a cut so pple that aren't interested can scroll past this behemoth of a post more easily.) :

the sea/harbor/drowning theme vs wind for Jinx, and timebomb.

First part is pure analysis of the themes, then I go into more theorizing/personal thoughts/criticisms about her leaving and what it means, finally a short pure analysis at the end again. Be warned I do criticize stuff in the show in this.

Someone in a reddit thread pointed something I found interesting in that Ekko has an obsession with clean air, vent, clenaing the air.

And air is everywhere in his character (the tree, the bug that flies, he flies.) But also what he represents for Zaun, with his commune and tree : a breath of fresh air. A respite. Hope. Wind of hope or something like that.

And Jinx is associated with Janna, she comes to be associated with Janna... gets elevated from the depth of the harbor, the drowning, to the air, the wind. Powder, that drowned in a well, gets out of it.

But when you look at it, she started with the air theme actually. Our first vision of her is with her speaking of flying in a blimp. She looks at the sky, she wants to fly.

Powder that started with the blimp, the sky, the air...

then the sea/drowning theme is brought to her by Silco, who had this tied to him from the start.

Silco, very tied to the sea/drowning theme from the start, like he first shows up in an underwater lab in the show.

He dragged her with him in this, he is the one that brought the sea. He is the one that had her be this sort of twisted reverse ophelia. (reborn in "madness" instead of freed from it with the drowning. mad, crazy, insane, etc. should be avoided as per the communities' demand, bc they are ableist. but i can't find another term here for this concept of thr "madness" in literature, theatre, ballet etc.)

He dies, and she goes back to the wind, to the air. Bits by bits.

She starts to push back the toxic air... Then, she reaches the tree -symbol of oxygen, growing up-, the firelights -symbol of air for Zaun, bug that flies. It's not the air itself yet, it's a breath, but it's going there.-

Also the tree as a way to climb back up, roots that go down down down but still grows up toward the sky. In zaun in particular there's the very "its roots are in a terrible rotten place the one that is Zaun, [sort of underworld?] and yet it grows and thrives." Thus linking the tree to Jinx too? and a way for her to climb, via the tree, a junction, before she takes off in the sky. Making the firelights a transition, before she can take off and fly away. which yes ok thematically it works.

It pains me to admit it bc that makes Ekko just a transition for her -cool cool. Use the black man as a prop, the black man of the ship that is all for her, reduced to be all for her, but she just uses him before discarding him? Yeah. Nah. That's shit.- but it kinda also works in her narrative. And... it's there. In the show. she did use him and discard him, if she voluntarily left. And I hope if there's a spinoff it'll get adressed. That Ekko will adress it. cause it's not cool in general, but here using the black man as a prop for the white girl... Hmmm.

And finally the blimp (as much as I still dislike and struggle with the "she left" thing, cause like nah, the show didn't show her in a psychological crisis at the moment of her death. they didn't show her in a "everyone around me die". they showed her at peace. and yes peace by dying but that doesn't mean that realizing she didn't die she would immediately freak out. I mean she didn't have to realise she survived : she voluntarily escaped if what is shown is true with the shimmer going to the vent (and it's the only way she'd have survived anyway, by using shimmer to escape.). Her planning to die beforehand could be a reason but it doesn't work either cause Ekko... or as I mentionned just above, if that's the case, it makes it that she used him. Then discarded him. Worst, that she left him believe she was gonna live, or had hope, was better. That he succeeded in pulling her back from suicide. I love Jinx, a lot, but damn. I do not have hope due to the other racist stuff the writers did, but I fucking hope it'll get adressed at one point or another if they do a spinoff with them, or show them in another spinoff.)

And the going out via the sky. she flies away, literally, runs away, and is free.

(ngl if they put her in bilgewater next... except if it's a metaphor of how she has sunk back down again, I will not like it. But they care more about what people want. people see Jinx as a pirate so they'll make her a pirate. Don't care if it doesn't make sense with her development. Like it could make sense, as a "regression" or being so lost with herself -and being alone to figure it out- she falls back on what is familiar and what she knows. In this case, ties to the sea, adventure, recklessness, selfishness, etc. That is a strong possibility. We commonly fall back on old familiar behaviors when feeling lost with ourseleves and our identity. We seek environment that brings a sense of familiarty with their similarities of the one we knew, and that potentially traumatized us. Brain goes to what brain knows, even if it's hurtful. It takes a lot to go with the discomfort, even "pain" of what's new, even if we know technically it's better. it is so alien, anathema even, to our brain and psychology..)

It's a representation of her narrative arc, Powder (which is a volatile material, light, flying) and the sky, then powder falls down in a well, jinx is reborn, harbor, etc. Then she lets go of Silco in the sea and starts to reconnect with the wind and cie.

Going from one to the other, up high or reaching up high, to then not just fall to the ground but below it. The sea is below the ground, below earth level (dunno the exact english term for it) the sea of the underworld/the styx with the souls lost.

That would go with her bringing Silco's body there. Bc it's his/their thing the harbor, the well, but also it's kind of a styx reference/symbolism too maybe?

But ultimately for me timebomb connects on an "air" level. He does go down to her, yes. But he brings her back up. He is air for her, a breath of air -hope- like he is for Zaun. They connect for that, for this future, to build the something new.

they come in the battle via flying. They got down together, but now they'll try to fly, and bring air, together.

... and then what? she decides to return down? She decides to fall back down, and away from him. She decides to leave leave him... either bc she did fall back down and thus her ending in bilgewater, as I said as a reproduction of Jinx like with Silco, of this regression in her development, would make sense.

or she did decides to leave, not as a falling back down, but as a "be free and better and at peace", as a getting higher even, which... that means she used Ekko as a stepping stone.

And her falling back down, it doesn't fit with the "breaking the cycle" stuff and walking away and most importantly the flying away with a blimp, to be freed and better and at peace I think.

Explanations :

By flying away with the blimp, symbolically she's reaching this height of freedom, and flying, she elevates at the maximum. What's higher? the sun? Jinx isn't Icarus at all. she is leaving the show at rhe highest possible.

Now of course, it doesn't mean everything will be perfect and ideal. The high of doing something so drastic, that can feel peaceful at first, can break and one can fall back down pretty harshly. The higher one gets the harsher one falls... (So ... Icarus finally, yeah.). One could fall to their death even. to the underworld. from the sky, the highest height, back down to the sea -or the underworld-?

And of course, one does not heal so easily, not with issues and beliefs as deep rooted as she has. I do not discard the idea that after a while her issues came back. what does not work for me is that she wasn't shown in that space of mind in the final. She was shown into something opposite even.

I really think the show messed up in the final. rushed stuff and it doesn't make sense, things contradict themseleves.

also here we are speaking of the symbolism of sea/air stuff. and so if we stick to this -I know i go on tangents a lot.- it doesn't work.

Bc they only showed the blimp aka the air aka highest elevation in the air. aka only finally be freed in the most freeing way possible. (flying is oftentime linked to freedom in medias, to extreme total freedom. The ah what's the word... "apogée").

They can still after that go in and say "yeah nah her mental health have gone down again blablabla", she fell down back to drown, but in the show what was shown was clearly her getting away in a positive light. (whether we take her death at face value -peaceful expression- or leaving with the blimp.-).

They could go this road "elevated to the sun, flied too high, fell down bad. Here she is back down."

But then as much as I would like realistic psychology, and her not being healed so easily etc etc.

It would be boring to have her back at square 1 fallen back down fully with her old bad habits. Like that one is a personal opinion but it would bore me a lot and I would find it too easy to have a full revert of her development.

There's only one exception to this i could like, developped a few paragraphs below.

Although, again. I do not harbor -no pun intended... ok. yes. pun intended- any hope as I already stated in another post.

but it could be done... Although, again... what does this mean about her leaving?.

Her leaving with the blimp was framed as positive, as breaking the cycle, trying to find peace elsewhere. As an act of liberation. Death or leaving actually were both SHOWN that way. It's on screen. Her death is shown as her finding peace and liberation.

dying a hero and saving someone for once.

Not as her believing people would be better without her. Her whole death scene and the blimp and the whole thematic arc with air/sea/etc. So not go with her leaving bc she was under the logic of her twisted beliefs. Or in a mh crisis. it was shown as positive and peaceful and even... hopeful (for her.). Even if we decide to say thr MH crisis happened again, the blimp and what it represents in her narrative arc doesn't fully work with it. It's too... positive. too hopeful when we put it in her narrative arc, like even if we don't go the road of what i analysed with the air/sea. It's still a symbol of her breaking the cycle, for herself (aka violence. so hope she won't fall back into her old bad habits. and won't be a jinx anymore. which leaving doesn't break this cycle of being a jinx at all, it's a form of runing away from facing it but anyway.). It's this circle moment of young Powder, innocent hopeful powder that dreamed of flying. Finding Powder again, finding herself etc etc.

It's supposed to be positive. No matter how we look at it.

Now... All of this being said, I had a realization whilst writing :

Jinx as Odysseus. Ekko as Penelope. (that would make sense with the bloody scylla reference thrown in the extended version of mme.)

oooooh... Am i onto something 🤔

That would work very well with the already there reference of Orpheus and Eurydice for them... Eurydice did go back down, to the sea of the underworld, but fret not my love, I will be back. I will make my way back to you, just so you wait this time. (I... would not be bored by that.)

but where's the wind/air theme, and it still doesn't fit perfectly with where things were left at and what was shown. Odysseus/Penelope is not just : one is away and the other awaits. Odysseus also didn't voluntarily exile himself and stay away voluntarily. He didn't go on a personal identity quest and journey... He left for war then kept trying to come home.

but mixed with Orpheus/Eurydice... it can work. She left bc she had to go back down to the underworld? But she has to get back up by herself this time? long odyssey trying to come back?

but why did she has to go back down? or maybe she didn't fully chose too.

That... would work. that she didn't actually fully chose to leave... It's what I go with usually, that her mh - + injuries- had her leave kind of against her will -or more so following her twisted logic- but it still doesn't work with what was shown on screen during her death scene (explained above). except if maybe whilst in the vent she started to freak out...

ngl her having to leave again against her will kinda is the only thing that make it all work for me, even in term of symbolism/thematically speaking.

BUT that would mean she was already drowning and falling down again...

Or maybe she never fully got back up in the first place. And her thing with Ekko helping her was a fad.

not cool for him. But could work. he didn't actually bring her back up fully.

he... offered a reprieve, a breath of air, before she drowned again and had to leave to get fully better elsewhere. Used him then by man. (it wouldn't be the same as what i said "wait for me i have to get better by myself". This "wait for me etc." could work if she told him she was alive. If she did it could work. If she let him believe she was dead... eeeeh.)

which... I already explained why that's pretty shitty.

However, we also fall back on : why the blimp then? why the air and highest elevation and freedom possible shown then?

As I stated higher up, the blimp and her going away is framed as a positive and doesn't work with her leaving bc of a mh crisis or bc she didn't fully chose to, etc.

Bc of twisted beliefs eventually (I am breaking the cycle and will find peace elsewhere, all alone). that's it.

why the blimp? why this symbol of reaching the highest heights of "air"? Of freedom? In our collective imagination/reference something that flies is the height of freedom. One of it's ultimate symbols.

If they planned on bringing her back down, or saying she got back/still is down, why not showing a boat leaving? if they plan to drown her again, or say she is still drowning in a way, why the blimp and not a boat? Even if they go the road of odysseus/penelope with timebomb, a boat would have been fucking perfect. the blimp... the blimp is positive. The blimp is is "I am breaking the cycle and i am freeing people and myself.". It's using then discarding Ekko if he believes she's dead and wasn't warned about her plans. it's shitting on him.

I put "I am a jinx and people around me die" into her being back down btw. Ofc in general those beliefs wouldn't leave her so easily, of course. They're very deeply rooted. Healing is not linear etc etc etc. I know all of that. But again, that's not what was shown. That she was actively thinking that. Maybe she still was, but yeah. That's... not very optimistic/positive/I am free still.

It's still an interesting one to consider I think, Odysseus/Penelope. (or a reverse of it? He leaves voluntarily but cannot come back?).

I don't have a conclusion btw. i'm just having fun analysing stuff, and theorizing. Yes i am having fun even with my criticism. except when i end up realizing how badly they potentially messed up timebomb/Ekko. That one is not fun but I an a big proponent and supporter of saying "fuck canon" so... fuck canon.

And i really need to dig into the Moby dick for timebomb and the matter of pespective. is she his moby dick? Is she a crow with his owl (Zaun's royalty)? Is she Scylla? Is she actually the wind gods/Janna here? Is she a victim too, instead of this monster dragging him down? so is she just his Eurydice then? Is she Odysseus and he Penelope? What is she to him, what should he do, depends on the perspective. SO MUCH TO EXPLORE and think about.

Oh yeah also : that gives us the four elements btw. Water sea drowning, fire that twice acts as a burning of the past life.

the teee (earth) but dare i say... the mines. The mines are the esrth. Going in the depth of zaun, the mine where they find the shed and Vander.

And the air wind.

and it is super interesting how they couple in what they do. Water/fire that are opposites here serve the same function. Whilst air and earth we could say do also serve the same function (hope, climbing up, being better, etc.).

if i had known my studying of literature at uni would lead to that and not the phd I had envisioned 😅

to think I could be actually doing said phd rn if a terrible burn out and chronic illnesses hadn't hit me years ago... Not to diminish media analysis like this one, but when i struggle to write a post like that that isn't a very serious formatted academic analysis, then think of what i could accomplish before in term of academic level stuff, and could have had been doing instead if not for losing at the genetic lottery...

Yeah. anyway. Won't change anything to feel bad about it. And I am glad I can still do the stuff I can still do.

quick edit : I won't edit this, too long and i am getting tired of it. But I might write follow ups to re explain stuff or elaborate or if my thoughts have progressed further as I am actively thinking about all that, if I realized i didn't say something properly, or if i find the courage to rewrite to separate the pure analysis from the rest, etc.

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