#pls dont spoil me either im still playing through it 🙏

[hahnsplatinum]

Although (imo) botw and totk are two of the best zelda games from a game play perspective alone, they are also probably the most heartbreaking story-wise. This isn’t a “new” Link learning how to fight and navigate the world as the princess’s knight. By the time players meet him, this Link has already done all that technically—but in the same vein he also hasnt. We as the player are learning how to do things because Game Mechanics, but Link is forced to relearn and he knows this. In botw it’s through slowly getting back his memories and hearing the tales of what he once was from others, and in totk he knows from the start what he should be able to do but has lost it all again.

By the end of totk, this single iteration of Link and Zelda will have fought Ganon 3 times. The reoccurring theme in these games of “personhood vs purpose” hits so hard and makes sense. For the first time in a long time we see an iteration of Link and Zelda that not only fully know what theyre destined to do but fears it. And they have to keep walking toward that destined end anyways. We see in botw memories of Zelda more or less resenting her forced role as the goddess’s conduit and the implied idea that Link might feel the same about his role as her knight. And in totk, everything feels like it has an underlying tone of muted loss to some extent. A kingdom just starting to rebuilt itself sent back into turmoil, a people just relearning what normal life could be losing their peace, a princess and her knight losing their promised “after”.

After Ganon, there is suppose to be peace. After today, there is tomorrow. After life, there is death.

But there isnt, and there never will be. They have always existed, they will always exist, they have never existed. Wake up, Link. There’s more work to do.