To be honest, this topic should have been broached first, considering the most fundamental feature of Legend of Zelda video games: the playable character. That brings us to heroes.

They’re fairy boys. End of.

…

Heroes. Protectors of innocents. Patriots for land and country. Saviors of worlds. Voyagers to the frontier and beyond. Travellers of foreign lands. Bane of monstrosities. Judgment upon the wicked. Vanquishers of evil.

Heroes. These days, they’re essential to most narratives for the simple reason that “hero” has become synonymous with “protagonist”. Every story needs its protagonist, therefore every story needs a hero. Video games in particular insist: there MUST be a shining knight – figuratively speaking – to save the day.

Legend of Zelda takes this concept, dresses him up in tunics and skirts with the occasional tights, gives him a perm, and throws him into the fray. Okay, so they don’t give him a perm. They might as well have. Did I mention the green? Greeeeeen. Super green.

They call this poor sap Link.

Or, rather, these saps, plural. We’ll get to that eventually.

Like right now.

Right.

Now.

…

Now.

Let’s face it, the various individuals known as Link aren’t much more than your typical hero wrapped up in new cosmetics. That’s fine, really. There’s no need for background or character development or any of that. Those would be nice to have (I’ll get to that in a bit), but you don’t need them.

That’d all be fine, except our fairy boys collectively indulge in every goddamned related cliché, stereotype, and trope known to man before choking to death on all that. After a while, shit like this can get pretty old pretty fast.

At the outset, they’re either random travelers, orphans living with a guardian (usually their uncle, grandfather/grandmother, or a giant tree) or that one guy who starred in the last game. As the game progresses, they either reveal or develop some of the following: they’ve had friends or family kidnapped, they’re obliged to save the princess/world for the good of Hyrule, they’re the chosen of destiny and thus fated for this quest, they obtain a powerful sword to fight evil with, they transform into various creatures representative of their souls, they travel to or through a parallel dimension, etc. et al.

There’s a vital difference here between recycling various heroic commonalities and actually crafting a character from scratch, start to finish. One of these involves cutting and pasting. The other is more akin to carving the Birth of Venus out of a block of marble.

A hot, melting block of marble.

Before we delve into this, you’re going to need to know a specific definition of incarnation: a person who embodies and/or demonstrates a particular trait, characteristic, or aspect to a certain degree.

Keep in mind that this has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of reincarnation. That’s re-, as in “again”.

The Legend of Zelda series follows the exploits of several incarnations’ worth of heroes whose default names all happen to be Link. This is supported by in-game exposition from A Link to the Past; one particular version and translation reads as follows:

Now obviously, the backstory present in The Wind Waker goes out of its way to refute this with a hero’s failure to appear, but the basic concept is clear: that A, the heroes are all related through a common ancestry – even The Wind Waker supports this through the Hero’s Clothes and Hero’s Shield – and B, they appear when the royal family itself is in dire straits. These are inherent parameters in every Zelda game save Link’s Awakening, and that one can be argued to be a sequel akin to Majora’s Mask and thus count as an extension of the previous hero, thus not violating points A and B.

In short:

There are a bunch of green-garbed boys running around throughout the eons. They happen to be related to one another. They are each their own individual person. They are not reincarnations of one another. Nowhere has “reincarnation” ever been mentioned in relation to Legend of Zelda save one instance in regards to Kaepora Gaebora of Ocarina of Time.

Do we understand the difference between incarnation and reincarnation now?

If yes, good.

If no, go seat yourself at the back of the class. I had you in front and you still failed.

Didn’t use to be this way. The original strode through Hyrule like it was nobody’s business. Just rolled into town and started kicking ass and taking names. No prompting, no hand-holding, none of that – unless you deliberately sought out denizens few and far between. No, you were left to your own devices.

No longer.

• Hey. Look. Listen.

• Dude. Buy me a sail.

• Big ol’ meanie took my kingdom NOW I’M A BITCH /wrist

• Excuse me, I’m going to hide over there behind that rock, then jump out after you’re
  done and take credit for everything. See you in five.

And so on and so forth. At times they’re annoying. Useful? With ever-increasing frequency and potency. These are the helpers, the hand-holders, the heading knowers.

That is so totally a word: knowers.

Sidekicks are integral for heroes, or so they tell me. Friends tell me that sidekicks make excellent foils, that they give voice to the silent types, that they provide both moral and physical compass with which to navigate and traverse one’s environment.

My friends must be right, considering the ever-increasing length of manuals and tutorials.

They’re mutes. They don’t speak. They never speak. Not only do they not speak, they’re incapable of text. Not only are they incapable of text, they can’t even convey their intentions properly at times. If you don’t believe me, go track down those notorious Yes/No questions that often seem like their answer would matter.

“Yes,” Link might as well have said, “I’d love to risk my neck for the sake of a few butterfly pendants.”

“Great!” says the old lady, “I’ll be right here waiting for you and those pendants!”

Alternatively…

“No,” Link might as well have said, “your request is reasonable and coincides with my quest, yet I’d rather not.”

“Great!” says the old lady, “I’ll be right here waiting for you and those pendants!”

…yeeeeeaaaaaaNO, that’s not cool. We don’t get to hear or read Link talk – it’s implied that he does, and that’s as far as it goes. That’d be fine and dandy, if it wasn’t for these pointless questions that shouldn’t even be presented as options. The illusion of control is actually more frustrating than lack thereof.

Quit this façade, Ninty, and don’t ever come back to it. Either go all the way or don’t even start. No halfassed attempts at this, please.

Anyways, back to lack of voice.

The silent protagonist is hard-wired into the JRPG genre, and that’s understandable: for years, the general consensus was that you were actually playing the part (thus “roleplaying”) of the main protagonist, a.k.a. that pixelated sprite right there in the center of your screen. The Legend of Zelda actually started out this way: that sprite was the link between you and the game world… thus the default name.

We’re past that now.

We’re no longer just that sprite that goes around killing monsters for shits and giggles, dropping by caves and grottos for the occasional hint from wise old men. We’re Link, a participant in events and interactions that, together, comprise a story. Yet Link runs around pretending to look serious while making obnoxious facial expressions.

Don’t misunderstand: I’m a big proponent of the silent protagonist.

When it’s appropriate.

Guess what?

For LoZ, it’s no longer appropriate.

Anyone arguing that there’s any intellectual, emotional, or psychological depth to Link’s character is a completely illiterate or as near as one can be to illiterate and still play video games.

For the record: Link is not well-developed. The reason for this is so that Nintendo can keep us divorced from Mr. Silent Protagonist the Character so we can play the self-insert, play as ourselves.

Except he’s no longer a self-insert. What we’re looking at is a white elf dressed in green with blue earrings who runs about Hyrule pretending he cares and fights for his friends.

Ike cares and fights for his friends.

Link just wants to get the hell out of Dodge, and will take any excuse to do so.

A detective investigating this series would have broken his neck by now from shaking his head in shame.

There’s no motive most of the time. Sure, there may be an occasional errand to start out with, maybe a friend to save or something along those lines. After that’s done and over with, though? Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.

Nada 3.

There’s no personal motive or agenda, nor is there incentive. You do what you do because you were told to do so. Link could go settle down on a farm somewhere and be oblivious to all this – yes, it’s perfectly plausible to live a life overshadowed by chaos and tyranny – but nooooo. You beat the bad guy to beat the bad guy, you save the world to save the world. These are effects, not causes. There has to be a reason.

“But the reason is because they’re heroic! That’s what they do!”

What for?

“To save the people from suffering!”

What suffering? Half the time it’s pre-emptive, the other half the people aren’t suffering! The one clear-cut exception would be Twilight Princess, and those people weren’t suffering so much as emoting to high heaven!

“They do it because they care!”

THEN SHOW US WHY! Where’s the tragedy? Where’s the suffering? Why don’t I see it? Emotional involvement would be great, but you need a catalyst! I understand this series is targeted at a young audience, but it’s sure as hell possible to weave mature themes in as justification for heroism. Look at Disney for example! Since when do Disney protagonists stand up and go “hey, yeah, I think I’m going to do _____ for no particular reason whatsoever” ?

From what I hear, Spirit Tracks is excellent when it comes to motive. Kudos, Nintendo, for justifying Link’s escapades for once. Kudos.

That doesn’t change the fact that, for the most the series, his adventures haven’t been.

We’ve long since entered the age when a decent story is expected out of AAA titles. You can deny it, but it’s true. The evidence? Cutscenes. Yes, I’m sorry, your games are now partly cinematic experiences. Boo hoo, you’re playing an interactive movie, that’s such a horrible form of entertainment.

There’s good news for those of you who don’t like those sort of games and bad news for those who do. The good news is that there are still plenty of games out there that don’t really bother with drama: they’re still all about the gameplay with the obligatory characters and dialogue thrown in so that you know who’s who, what’s what, and why the hell you’re heading off into some goddamn monsters’ cave of wonders. The bad news is that the Legend of Zelda series has gradually moved towards a more cinematic experience without adopting many of the dramatic conventions vital to eliciting any level of depth. As such, the series straddles this uncomfortable zone between gameplay and story. That’s not somewhere any series wants to be.

The main element missing here is character development. Again, the heroes never really go anywhere; they’re fairly flat, static personalities. Granted, Nintendo has taken some steps to bring them to life, notably with the ever-increasing range of facial expressions. It’s not enough, though, because various factors come together and keep us from that ideal.

Lack of voice (text, voice-acting, or otherwise) keeps us from that ideal.

Lack of unique character designs keeps us from that ideal.

Lack of good writing keeps us from that ideal.

…yes, this editorial is all about making Zelda more like Final Fantasy. You caught me red-handed. Okay, no, not really. What Final Fantasy does well with its characters that I’d like to see more of in Zelda is emotion – Final Fantasy stories still suck. My main point: this series is missing out on some serious potential.

Like, seriously, oh my god, totally.

There’s no way you’re getting me emotionally involved over someone who’s incapable of expressing any feeling whatsoever save through his goddamn face, though The Wind Waker came close. It ain’t happening. And as long as it ain’t happening, tragic events aren’t going to impact me the way they ought to. Were it not for characters like Kafei and Anju – who admittedly weren’t that deep, yet were excellent reprieves all the same – I wouldn’t have given a damn whether that moon pulverized Termina or not. The main protagonists, heroes in particular, could use some more of that sort of treatment.

People often mislabel our various pretty boys as badasses. News flash: they’re not. They should be, but they’re not. Granted, this is a very subjective and opinionated topic. What’s badass to one person is lame, average, or over-the-top to another.

Link isn’t so much badass as he is selectively stoic. He alternates between making funny faces that mean “I care” and going relatively passive. That’s the difference, that’s what gives him that vibe, that feel. It’s a nice one, but it lacks the impact that comes with the right attitude and behavior.

Would make for a nice change of pace, witnessing Link display emotion in combat, smirk and wink knowingly at a bystander, or even walk down the street menacingly. But no, heroes have to have one of two looks frozen on their faces: “This is amazing” and “I am determined”.

Yeah, you’re determined. Determined to forever come off as a naïve, innocent little man who has never experienced trauma of any sort.

Honestly, this is what bugs me most about this series’ protagonists: they don’t ever choose to save the world or defeat the big bad. They’re sort of just obligated to. They start off with some personal conflict that needs addressing, and less than a quarter of the way through that need is either dropped or resolved – not evolved, mind – in exchange for duty.

How about a game that doesn’t involve saving anything or anyone? Yes, I know, hard to fathom. How about a game where we’re not heroes, but just protagonists?

I’m not advocating choice here, mind. Give us a set-in-stone storyline, I’ve no qualms about that. Let’s just have a character with their own personal goal to accomplish. Revenge, perhaps. Yes, I know, another exhausted cliché. I only bring it up as an example: there’s a wide range of epic journeys to choose from, and not all of them are savior-related. Hell, some of them don’t even require you to be a nice guy (or gal, for you feminists out there). Last I checked, the three common themes throughout this series are Zelda, Ganon, and the Triforce. There’s plenty of wiggle room with one, two, and even all three of those to allow for some diversity.

I feel like every time we ask Nintendo to change the Legend of Zelda, they get the wrong idea and change the wrong things.

Story is one of the ones that really do need changing. Same goes for characters. Especially Link.

Over a dozen games so far and the only one that’s even come close to plucking my heartstrings was The Wind Waker.

Let’s have another one of those heroes.