Poll: Should Link be female in the next Lengend Of Zelda
- Thread starter scorn the biomage
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No. He shouldn't. That's stupid. First off, I'll skip picking apart your failure to use the English language, and instead choose to assume you learned it recently.scorn the biomage said:
No, the real reason that this idea is stupid simple. Link is a male character. Link is a male name. The tunic, as displayed in the series, is styled for men, though you are at least correct in your assumption that tunics were historically worn by both men and women (though I doubt you put that much thought into the subject). As for the idea that there is nothing "masculine" about link, I can only assume you are referring to his build and features. But, the thing is, apart from his generically pretty anime face, link's pretty masculine. Now, ignoring his various games as a small boy for a moment, link has been featured as a lithe, but muscular male in Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, skyward sword, and even parts of Majora's Mask. Granted, women can be muscular, but I'm sure we can all agree, sexist or not, that the "idea" of a feminine appearance is not one with muscle definition in one's sword-arm. Now, in the art for both ocarina AND majora, he's similarly well-exercised even as a small child. In wind waker, he's a noodle, but they made his face masculine. Even in Twilight Princess, he has an androgynous face, but still is overall male.
So where have you gotten this idea he isn't masculine? Because he isn't a ridiculous pile of muscle like the Gears of War characters? Or War? Or Kratos? Well, maybe not kratos, his definition is insane, but his proportions are sort of well-toned.
I don't know what moviebob thing you're referring to, since I choose to avoid much of his work in order to keep things friendly between the mods and myself. So i won't attack you on that point, but I do wonder why you need to bring it up. If you're confident in your opinion, don't trot out a reference to the authority you're emulating, it makes you look like you're trying to give your thoughts legitimacy by associating them with the work.
Obviously, that's not to say you shouldn't give SOURCES for your ideas or conjecture, but the way you've done it makes you look foolish.
I also don't have a problem with having a zelda game (a real one) star zelda as the main character, except for tradition's sake. But no, having link be a woman is stupid. It's like saying Zelda should be a man (shiek notwithstanding).
Did you mean, wouldn't it be good to have a female protagonist in the new zelda game? if so, that's what you should have asked. Not the above nonsense.
To have a female stand-in for link, it'd have to be an entirely different character.
And finally, NO having a female protagonist occupying the same role as link always has wouldn't be good for the series. It'd be irrelevant, because Legend of Zelda isn't ABOUT characters, it's about the world and the adventure. Link has exactly one character trait: he's courageous. otherwise, he's blank, for the user to view the world around him. Having a female character in his place would change nothing, except it'd be a girl stabbing moblins in the face instead of a boy.
Except that if we DID have a female lead, the game would be ruined, because suddenly it would be ABOUT her being a girl fighting monsters. The character's gender would cause the writers to lose their god-damned minds trying to write for a woman, and fail miserably, because that's what PC gender swaps always do, and it almost always doesn't work. Granted, there's a CHANCE the writers would leave it alone and make a decent Zelda game, but I think Skyward Sword proved that isn't a safe bet.
So no, link shouldn't be female, because that's stupid.
The next game shouldn't star Zelda because it'd fuck with the formula too much.
There shouldn't be a new character, because the series has always been Link's adventure.
There shouldn't be a female protagonist because the writers would fail to tell the story properly.
Hope that got you to think
It wouldn't really change anything though this isn't an argument for or against it.
Well it wouldn't change anything unless they decide to then have the story revolve around her gender, try and throw the whole ?look I am a women and strong? thing at every opportunity, utterly fail at it and end up coming across as sexist themselves which is what often happens when you gender swap characters.
I think it would be nice to see Zelda kicking some ass on her own actually.
Well it wouldn't change anything unless they decide to then have the story revolve around her gender, try and throw the whole ?look I am a women and strong? thing at every opportunity, utterly fail at it and end up coming across as sexist themselves which is what often happens when you gender swap characters.
I think it would be nice to see Zelda kicking some ass on her own actually.
Oh look, I was spot on in my guess.scorn the biomage said:
How old are you? Twelve? Duke Nukem isn't masculine, he's a caricature of machismo. Look those words up if you need to.
This post, I'm going to pick on you for grammar.
"All I'm saying [is that] link isn't masculine
the last part of the sentence is also very badly phrased.
Now, the sad truth is, there ARE a lot of men who won't play a game if they have to play a woman. And there are also a lot of men who will flock to a game that lets them be a woman, so they can ogle digital asses.
That would be neat to have an option to make Link male or female. The only thing that peeves me is Zelda, usually there is always a relationship between both characters so how would that work? Zelda most certainly can't be a boy, and you can't just get rid of Zelda just for a male love interest for the female protagonist (since the series is called the Legend of ZELDA).
I guess this you could make both female Link and Zelda gal pals... ngggggh my brain hurts, but this subject is so interesting!
I guess this you could make both female Link and Zelda gal pals... ngggggh my brain hurts, but this subject is so interesting!
I'd like to put yes but I'd much rather have Zelda as the main character for once like a lot of people in this thread it seems.
I just picked the name out of random. I'm also assuming that the character in that play was using that as shorthand for Freda or Faridah? I'm guessing I should probably edit that to say Fredric or something, just to plug that hole. Glad you agree though.NpPro93 said:
There's also Winifred Burkle, from Angel (the Buffy spinoff.) She's just called Fred throughout the entire series.an annoyed writer said:
Names are fun!
Why should his gender change? I see no reason at all for this. Not much has changed about Link over the years, and that is something I actually like.
How about we skip the debate and go straight to why we don't have a game based around Zelda's alternate identity: Sheik.
Do it, Nintendo.
Do it, Nintendo.
OK,m so let me try again then. I am not against female protagonist, I do not think a female version of Link wouldn't be able to save the world, you have accused me of all these things while I haven't said any of these things.JimB said:
Characters are part of the plot. Remove Sam from Lord of The Rings and the books would have played out differently. Change one of the characters and the story would have changed. I am not against change and I don't mind seeing the protagonist of a series change.
Make Link a female. What is going to change? Nothing. Link will still be going through temples solving puzzles and making sounds that aren't words. Link is an empty husk rather than a fully fleshed character. Making Link female would be a cosmetic change and thus not really make the game any different. It wont make the game feel new or interesting. That's why I would prefer Zelda being the protagonist over a female Link.
Now I'm not sure if I am being polite enough for you, but after you have accused me of prejudice and bigotry and twisting my words into saying that a female Link would be less capable (when saying it would change NOTHING) this is the best I can do.
I don't see the point in making link female. He is a silent protagonist meant for the player to project his or her own personality traits onto him. So I don't see boobs being a big game changer. Link would still act the same, the story would be the same, and the dungeons would all have the same items. SO I guess my answer is no because it would literally add nothing to the game and only increase the amount of fanart female link already has.
Why would the boy get to go on an adventure to get the physical manifestations of Power, Courage and Wisdom while the girl goes on a mundane quest to get sanitary towels?CoronaryThrombosis said:
What you think any quest involving a woman could ONLY be for mundane feminine items?
Screw "progressiveness", progress for the sake of progress is pointless, it's moving ahead blindly. I'm talking about catching up with the way things actually are, contemporariness. Not pushing PEOPLE forward, but bringing representations up to where people are today.josemlopes said:
One thing you don't realise is the fans KNOW that Link is NOT one-person, but a role that any young person adopts as saviour of Hyrule. So far we have only seen young men take up the mantle, but showing just one girl take up the Link role shows that it's not a male prerogative, that they didn't get the role because of whether they have a Y chromosome, but because of the quality of the young Hyrulian's character.
There has been increasing POPULAR trends, not ordained by the elite but by the common citizen who are against male ascendency that discriminates against women, that it's wrong to discriminate by gender. The British public were polled and stated THEY wanted an end to Primogeniture for the (purely symbolic) monarchy, and legal mandate of Patrilineality has completely disappeared by POPULAR opinion. NOT executive meddling.
Considering the unpopularity of Patrilineality, a female Link is a natural possibility and would make for an interesting one after the young-boy adventurers is such a well trodden path in Legend of Zelda games and so many others in the genre.
See *most* men aren't insecure any more, they can play the role of a female without it puncturing their inflated male ego, just like women can play so many FPS games without the idea of being a Male Marine challenging their femaleness. I mean who marked down Portal 2 because the protagonist wasn't a dude?
This is the furthest thing from pandering to a particular gander, as that's guaranteed to be a zero-sum game as half are male, half are female. The point of a female Link is a direct result of the Hyrule Lore of "chosen one" not being linked to masculine traits, but broad human traits like courage, honour and duty.
You personally may not want this. But don't blame the elite. Blame all of society. Blame the very earliest LoZ lore.
This contradiction you don't explain well, you just seem to be working backwards from the presumption that female link would be bad and picking contradictory reasons for it.8-Bit_Jack said:
Actually this contradiction you've inadvertently highlighted proves the most important aspect of the "Link Character".
"To have a female Link, it'd have to be an entirely different INDIVIDUAL. "
Because Link IS an entirely different individual! Some LoZ games are direct sequels following the same individual, but most are set hundreds or thousands of years apart and each time it is depicted as the young protagonist's first adventure after being born and growing up in a village.
"Having a female Link would change nothing"
Exactly. Your contradictions prove my point, Link is about a courageous one rising from the common people of Hyrule, Link being a girl wouldn't change that. That anyone could be the courageous one to vanquish evil is the important theme, which could (and should eventually) go to a woman. Even if it was a winding path of inheritance, who says a female can't inherit? Deliberately changing the character illustrates Link's stated nature.
Also I think it would do a lot to reaffirm why Link fights, not as a romantic gesture to Princess Zelda (which is distancing from selfless courage) but for all the people of Hyrule, that Princess Zelda petitions Link to do.
Link being MALE doesn't mean Ocarina of Time is about him being male. Why would Link being female mean it's about her being female? Why the double standard? This expectation of maleness is the contradiction from the stated Zelda-lore.
The bottom line: having a new Legend-of-Zelda game where Link is female won't forever make Link female, it won't retcon anything. It will however FULFIL the Zelda lore that the Link-Role is for the courageous one, not dependant on gender.
No, Mcoffey, I don't hate change. I listed SEVERAL good reasons why a female LINK wouldn't work, the grounds upon which a female protagonist WOULD work, and then said I wouldn't mind a game starring Zelda or an altogether different set of characters, except that the series is legend of ZELDA and has always been LINK's adventure. And see, if you were able to actually understand my argument, you'd also know what I said about writing the protagonistMcoffey said:
I said that: If the game were written exactly the same way, it wouldn't matter if link had tits, because his gender rarely factors in to anything, except to identify him as one or the other.
The PROBLEM is, I don't trust nintendo to do that. Consider for a moment what they ALLOWED Samus Aran to become at the hands of team ninja. Consider also that they have been slowly adding traits to Link, up to actually having dialogue for him in Skyward Sword (which should never have happened, for reasons you probably don't understand, and i won't go into). It is ENTIRELY likely that, should they make the switch to a female lead, the game would suddenly be about "i'm a woman doing things in a big scary world!" instead of "I have a quest to complete, for the good of the world"
And WHY is that a problem? If you don't know, I can't help you, because it means you both have no understanding of writing AND that you missed the giant sexism craze of the past couple months.
And why is it the likely scenario? because that is the MOST common thing done with female protagonists, right up there with making the "strong independent woman" a complete ***** instead of an actual strong female character.
And no, your post didn't seem harsh, it seemed ridiculous and uninformed. And yes, my other post was rude. Very rude, even. But then, that's just the way life is. Some people are assholes all the time. Others are assholes to people they view with contempt. And to be honest, I'm pretty contemptuous of the OP, given his opinions and thread history. So yeah, I'm also being pretty rude to you, but that's only because you read my post once and failed to understand anything I said, then decided to whine at me on another user's behalf
