While this discussion does have the "damsel in distress" trope at its core, I am not here to debate the concept as it pertains to video games as medium. This is solely about the character Princess Zelda and the franchise named after her. That said, let's keep things civil. The first person to throw out the acronym "SJW" un-ironically will get three swift floggings on the rump, especially because this discussion is only tangentially related to female representation, etc.,etc.
Now that that's out of the way I pose this question to you all: why are we still rescuing Zelda from Ganon? Over the course of the franchise's long history Zelda has become more and more capable. She began as a powerless damsel in the franchise's early days and eventually graduated to a magic ninja, a pirate captain and so on. This was made possible because, like Link, she's just a reincarnation of the same soul, tied to the same destiny every era she is reborn into. What separates them greatly, however, is that Zelda is often times reborn with wildly different personalities, outlooks, skills and even professions. Conversely, Link is basically the same character every time (and we need not mention Ganon since he's actually the same guy presumably with intact memories of all his incarnations within a given timeline). So across the different titles Zelda has had the most variance in her character, so much so that in some instances we only really know she's Zelda because someone calls her that (Wind Waker is a good example of this).
Beyond their namesake, what trait do all these Zeldas share then? They all get captured before the story's over and Link always saves them. You'd think that being reincarnated with so much variance would allow her to evade such a fate every now and then, but sadly it does not. A character requiring salvation from another is not inherently a bad thing at all, however. In fact, it can be used to further develop said character. But you know, when you're captured over and over and over again, it kind of makes you wonder... how incompetent is this character? I personally don't think she's incompetent at all; rather, I think the writers of the series feel obligated to damsel her out of tradition more than anything else. This is incredibly dumb as it contradicts everything they've been trying to do with the character since Ocarina of Time: make her an empowered, competent badass.
OoT may actually be the worst offender of this as we're made to understand that Sheik (Zelda) is a super badass, but as soon as she reveals herself a magic, bullshit crystal of plot contrivance appears out of thin air and gobbles her up. You know, if Ganondorf is so powerful at this point why didn't he do the same to Link? Not only does Link not have any magic of his own to counter Ganon's efforts, but he was like five feet away from Zelda when this happened. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
Weirdly Hyrule Warriors (a non-canon Zelda spin-off) avoids this entirely! Not only is Zelda a capable, empowered badass, but she never once gets captured and the latter half of the game has her leading Hyrule's armies against Ganondorf with Link playing more of a supporting role by the end. In fact, you can play the final mission as any character and doing so as Zelda feels very... fitting. Now I am not saying that we need to play as Zelda or that she should take the spotlight away from Link (he is the series protagonist after all), but it would be nice to see the plot of future games compliment her character more often than it does.
I have to wonder: why is this even still a thing at this point? Most of the games she appears in since OoT seem to kind of shoehorn her capture in near the very end of the game; often times only marginally raising the stakes. In most of these games Link's already been questing to save Hyrule for 90% of the game and that won't change whether Zelda is captured or not. As I mentioned above, it just strikes me as sticking to tradition for tradition's sake and it's just comes off as... uninspired.
What do you guys think? Should Zelda be relegated to this role forever or do you think Nintendo could afford to do something more interesting with her? What kind of future do you see/want for the character?
Discuss!
Now that that's out of the way I pose this question to you all: why are we still rescuing Zelda from Ganon? Over the course of the franchise's long history Zelda has become more and more capable. She began as a powerless damsel in the franchise's early days and eventually graduated to a magic ninja, a pirate captain and so on. This was made possible because, like Link, she's just a reincarnation of the same soul, tied to the same destiny every era she is reborn into. What separates them greatly, however, is that Zelda is often times reborn with wildly different personalities, outlooks, skills and even professions. Conversely, Link is basically the same character every time (and we need not mention Ganon since he's actually the same guy presumably with intact memories of all his incarnations within a given timeline). So across the different titles Zelda has had the most variance in her character, so much so that in some instances we only really know she's Zelda because someone calls her that (Wind Waker is a good example of this).
Beyond their namesake, what trait do all these Zeldas share then? They all get captured before the story's over and Link always saves them. You'd think that being reincarnated with so much variance would allow her to evade such a fate every now and then, but sadly it does not. A character requiring salvation from another is not inherently a bad thing at all, however. In fact, it can be used to further develop said character. But you know, when you're captured over and over and over again, it kind of makes you wonder... how incompetent is this character? I personally don't think she's incompetent at all; rather, I think the writers of the series feel obligated to damsel her out of tradition more than anything else. This is incredibly dumb as it contradicts everything they've been trying to do with the character since Ocarina of Time: make her an empowered, competent badass.
OoT may actually be the worst offender of this as we're made to understand that Sheik (Zelda) is a super badass, but as soon as she reveals herself a magic, bullshit crystal of plot contrivance appears out of thin air and gobbles her up. You know, if Ganondorf is so powerful at this point why didn't he do the same to Link? Not only does Link not have any magic of his own to counter Ganon's efforts, but he was like five feet away from Zelda when this happened. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
Weirdly Hyrule Warriors (a non-canon Zelda spin-off) avoids this entirely! Not only is Zelda a capable, empowered badass, but she never once gets captured and the latter half of the game has her leading Hyrule's armies against Ganondorf with Link playing more of a supporting role by the end. In fact, you can play the final mission as any character and doing so as Zelda feels very... fitting. Now I am not saying that we need to play as Zelda or that she should take the spotlight away from Link (he is the series protagonist after all), but it would be nice to see the plot of future games compliment her character more often than it does.
I have to wonder: why is this even still a thing at this point? Most of the games she appears in since OoT seem to kind of shoehorn her capture in near the very end of the game; often times only marginally raising the stakes. In most of these games Link's already been questing to save Hyrule for 90% of the game and that won't change whether Zelda is captured or not. As I mentioned above, it just strikes me as sticking to tradition for tradition's sake and it's just comes off as... uninspired.
What do you guys think? Should Zelda be relegated to this role forever or do you think Nintendo could afford to do something more interesting with her? What kind of future do you see/want for the character?
Discuss!
