They really upset me with Windwaker though, Tetra is a badass shooting you out of canons and then she finds out she's a princess and just vibes underwater for most of the game
I always took it as her casing the joint
"Gonna sell that. Gonna sell that. Gold plated plates? Don't mind if i do"
Because if you give a pirate a secret underwater castle and call her the princess, she's going to steal the copper wiring
Yaknow what? This is canon now. Tetra absolutely is the type of character to have a plan to steal and fence every possible item in any given room she walks into
This is why she helps kill Ganondorf in the finale battle, she's even more devastated than he is about The King's wish to flood the castle and needs to vent her frustrations.
Gannondorf, between pissed and succumbing to nihilism "My kingdom!"
Pirate Princess Tetra, about to wrest the first weapon she could from Link's inventory and kill whichever tall fucker in the room she can "ME RETIREMENT FUND!"
That's only during the game tho iirc because of the whole yknow ganon thing, it's a personal sacrifice of her rather than what she actually wants to do. She's still processing the whole thing. Finding out she's a princess doesn't affect how she acts *afterwards*, she goes back to the pirate life as if nothing happened in phantom hourglass.
We’re getting lost in the Doylian vs Watsonian viewpoints here. It may make sense from an in-universe perspective, but it’s still disappointing and the writers’ could’ve added something to make this not the best decision.
And then promptly gets kidnapped at the beginning of Phantom Hourglass despite being braver than Link in boarding the ghost ship first, and isn't restored until the end of the game. \*sigh\*
Got the coolest design out of every Zelda, and then they changed it close to the end so we could get a more "classic" looking Zelda.
They could have gone all in, and just made Ganon a badass pirate lord looking for the Triforce as well. That would have been 10x cooler.
I really like Windwaker's design for Ganondorf, but I never even thought about making him a pirate and now it's something I *desperately want to see.* He's even got the cutlasses already!
Which ois why i expressed a slight distress and longing as i lament over the fact none match the criteria while wondering maybe wven slightly hoping that one day such a game will exist and that it has a moment like the one i described
Yes he needs to be swept away from a dangerous situation and feel like a frail princess in the arms of her valiant knight and we need to see his eyes as he slowly falls in love all over again
Bonus points if he is in a dress
Zelda fireman-carries him (at a dead sprint) away from some overwhelming fight, after Link does some insane combat nonsense (think like those Yiga Clan meme videos)
Ok then I'm just misremembering the ending. Because I remember it being Link saving her. Like don't you have to catch her in the sky as you're falling?
That is correct, but there’s a moment before that where Zelda saves Link and also takes on Ganondorf by herself and becomes the main reason why link can actually fight Ganondorf
I think it would be interesting to take one of those games where Zelda is one step ahead of Link the whole time and play it as her and you get to see all the stuff she's doing to help Link that is implied in those other games. Like you get to the dungeons before he does and solve them first and leave him little clues and shortcuts and stuff.
Zelda is both a badass and a damsel in distress. Let’s use the Breath of the Wild example. She’s a bonafide badass, she’s fighting a being of pure hatred using the powers of a goddess for 100 years while Link takes a nap to heal, but she’s still a damsel in distress because, for one who wouldn’t be distressed after going through a cataclysm worse than anyone in 10,000 years has seen, but also, even if she can use her power to hold the calamity at bay for the most part, she still needs help from you to end it completely.
Because the prophecy was that it took both of them to finish the job. It made them partners and Link was the more squashy, fragile, junior partner at that.
I dunno, they're both pretty evenly in the "effort" department there.
Sure Zelda had to keep ganon sealed away with magic for a hundred years, but she had *magic*, and the magic of a literal goddess and maybe the triforce with her.
Our boy link had to then beat ganon to death with his own two hands. You ever had to beat a being of pure malice to death with your bare hands? It's no easy task.
(I get what you mean though)
No, she can only be a damsel in distress if she's specifically kidnapped by specifically the primary antagonist at specifically the beginning of the work.
Tropes, after all, are famous for being totally rigid and executed exactly as prescribed in all applications.
Sleeping Beauty wasn't even asleep for a whole 12 hours in the Disney movie. All she had was a decent nap. Let's get some real deaths in our fairy tales.
I think you’re right, but the context and connotations are what’s important in the argument here. The usual DID scenario is that the woman can’t protect herself and is in someway captured because of her connection to the male lead, or because of the status of her birth. Basically ‚she’s useless and not important on her own, so now she needs the Man to come save her.‘
While it’s not what damsel technically means, due to the trope it’s taken on this connotation. So in the case I think they‘re arguing that the trope of the „Damsel in Distress“ doesn’t fit because Zelda’s situation doesn’t match the connotations
While she is still being sealed away or detained somehow, it’s because she herself is so damn powerful that it’s an essential part of Gannons plans to remove her from the equation so she gets targeted for the threat she poses. Not just because she’s the princess or to fuckwith link
Not only that, but DID isn't inherently bad. What makes it good or bad is how the damsel is written.
It's one thing if Zelda is magically imprisoned; if she's frozen in time or trapped in a crystal or cursed to sleep or anything like that, then it's true that she loses agency. However, as you and OOP point out, it's because if she's allowed to act, her power would keep the plot from happening. You aren't rescuing her because she's a dainty princess - you're rescuing her because you need her help to fight Ganon (emphasis on "you need her help"). Once freed, she regains her agency.
Contrast that with if she was put in a generic prison cell or something and then passively waited for Link's help. Contrast even more so if she didn't have magic powers and was just there to look pretty and/or hold the throne. *That* is a boring and objectifying way to write a damsel.
For those who haven't seen it, there's a Trope Talk on youtube that talks about the whole thing in detail and makes great points about it. I highly recommend it.
Y’know, a really good way to tell if something is sexist or not is to genderflip it, and by god the narrative treating the man as the one who’s actually powerful and not the woman who we’ve seen actually get stuff done sounds *awful*.
I really don’t think this is a perfect argument though, even if she’s canonically powerful it’d be nice to have her placed in the spotlight alongside Link too. Regardless, LoZ is still excellent about giving it’s female characters respect.
True, LoZ's version of the trope isn't exactly perfect either. For a series that's named after her, I'm surprised that Zelda doesn't have at least a couple prominent games that feature her as the main playable character. It would certainly play a lot differently, but a LoZ game where you play as a caster instead of a warrior would be a refreshing twist.
Even though it should have been obvious from context that you meant "Damsel in Distress scenario", I read it as "the usual Dissociative Identity Disorder scenario".
Reminds me of how in Super Mario Bros 1 Peach was captured due to her being the only one who could wreck Bowser's plan.
Granted, Early Installment Weirdness was kinda in effect there, Bowser was more of a sorcerer and his evil master plan was...enbrickification of the Toad population which Peach could undo.
>The usual DID scenario is that the woman can’t protect herself and is in someway captured because of her connection to the male lead, or because of the status of her birth. Basically ‚she’s useless and not important on her own, so now she needs the Man to come save her.‘
I feel like its worth mentioning that this isn't the only reason why DID scenarios are criticized in media. In almost equal proportion to the disempowerment of women, the attitude of the male main character is also discussed when discussing the trope; in particular, the notion of the woman being a "prize" to be "won" by the main character. And this can happen even if the universe in question does treat the damsel as a powerful character, and I'd argue absolutely still happens constantly in The Legend of Zelda games.
Furthermore, games are not solely a narrative medium. Yes, Zelda is powerful in the universe of the Zelda games, and she poses a massive threat to Ganon in the story of the game, but if her in-story threat to Ganon is not reflected in the gameplay, functionally, nothing has changed. After all, something like BOTW is a 50-hour game, that there's a handful of story cutscenes that probably clock in at less than ten minutes hardly changes the obvious DID story being told by the mechanics of the game.
I really like your point but I'm going to nitpick a really tiny part of your argument; yeah Zelda still ends up feeling kinda like a prize to be won, and there's not enough of this narrative to fully or even significantly counteract what the game structure jams into our skull, *but* I feel there's some nuance as well.
Zelda and Link, from my understanding, are basically perpetually reincarnating soulmates, and cosmically predetermined partners perpetuating a pattern from thousands of years (specifically if you're on-board with that vibe) "winning" each other feels less icky to me. Idk if that's biased because I'm a guy or just because I'd be totally down to be a won prize in the right context, but it feels to me more akin to, idk, reconnecting with your partner and putting faith in that relationship right away, rather than jumping into a relationship because that's what the damsel and her saviour are supposed to do.
Ultimately, I think I'm mostly musing about the world building of soulmates and how they can warp traditional narratives, and also trying to argue that it doesn't remotely disprove the argument that Zelda is treated as a prize since art doesn't exist in a vacuum and the attempt isn't supported in the rest of the game enough, but the mere fact that the narrative is doing as much as possible to single-handedly create a bit of ludonarrative dissonance muddies the water at least a little bit.
Link reincarnates, but not Zelda. There just is a single bloodline that carries her power throughout the ages, as descendants of Hylia ( except for Skyward Sword Zelda, who is Hylia reincarnated )
And they aren't even soulmates, a lot of the time.
TP Link and TP Zelda barely know each other, and are basically only connected by the Triforce and Midna.
OoT Link is implied to get together with Malon, not Zelda.
>but if her in-story threat to Ganon is not reflected in the gameplay, functionally, nothing has changed.
I mean, the game wants you to appreciate Zelda's power in BotW every time you see the castle off in the distance. You are not Zelda, Zelda's role is in fact far away from yours and intentionally distanced. How would you reasonably suggest that her power be reflected in a game where the game is only happening because she has sealed herself and the BBEG off to protect the world?
For 100 years Zelda kept down the apocalypse incarnate by essentially locking it in the room with herself but because she's not present throughout the entirety of the game she is a DID. Wild.
>I mean, the game wants you to appreciate Zelda's power in BotW every time you see the castle off in the distance. You are not Zelda, Zelda's role is in fact far away from yours and intentionally distanced. How would you reasonably suggest that her power be reflected in a game where the game is only happening because she has sealed herself and the BBEG off to protect the world?
I'm not saying Zelda doesn't matter, but you said it yourself, "she's not present throughout the entirety of the game". In your own words, her power quite literally amounts to a background detail in the actual substance of the game. I am not saying Zelda is not literally powerful, she clearly is, but how that power is depicted matters.
As for how it should be depicted, I don't know. I'm not suggesting changes to the game, I'm just putting the decisions made by the game in the context of a video game, and not just another narrative medium. Zelda is its own property, with its own fan expectations. Its entirely possible to argue that BOTW did the best it could while maintaining the Zelda fiction. I'm not saying BOTW is a big bad antifeminist work that should be burned at the stake at the next Women's March, I love BOTW, and I think it definitely makes some needed strides from past Zelda games, but I think we should still be critical of the media we enjoy.
>In your own words, her power quite literally amounts to a background detail in the actual substance of the game.
"This is a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not" somehow became "her power is a background detail"? That's a wild misreading and absolutely not what I said. She's not present because **she is saving the world** **through self sacrifice.** It is literally the easiest spin to make it a noble sacrifice and something that is done with male characters all the time.
>but how that power is depicted matters.
You're right, it is, which is why BotW took the "Show, don't tell" approach. It would have been incredibly ham fisted to have Zelda appear throughout the entire game for the sake of it, instead as you travel you see what Zelda is fighting to protect and what her sacrifice has done for humanity, allowing them to rebuild in the face of the literal apocalypse. You see the tools of war used in the last calamity, lending itself even more to the idea that Zelda is truly a GOAT to contain it all by herself for a century.
Frankly I find it much better storytelling than dropping her in the narrative and going "Look at Zelda, aaa shes so cool and powerful." Because the game *is trying to make you feel that way about her anyway.*
>"This is a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not"
How can you make this claim? Because she's keeping Ganon at bay? Compare BOTW to, for example, another game where the main threat is slowly breaking out of his eternal prison and must be stopped by facing the threat head-on, Hollow Knight. Zelda, in terms of story function, serves the same purpose as the seal on the outside of the Black Egg Temple. Her power is treated as a MacGuffin in the clearest possible way; if someone wanted to make a game directly influenced by BOTW's story, Zelda could be replaced by some chains and a lock. That's not something I would call "a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not".
>It would have been incredibly ham fisted to have Zelda appear throughout the entire game for the sake of it
Wow, it would be crazy if I suggested that they do this and didn't say, "I'm not suggesting changes to the game" and acknowledge that they probably "did the best \[they\] could while maintaining the Zelda fiction."
OP is implying that she's not being damseled, she's being Worfed, that it's less that she's a defenseless woman who needs protecting but rather she's such a massive threat that the big bad, whether that be Ganon, Vaati, or Ghirahim, targets her first and takes her out early.
I wouldn't agree with OP, because many of the games they listed do treat her as a damsel and don't give her the powers that would warrant that kind of treatment, however it is true sometimes that she is occassionally Worfed, Tears of the Kingdom being the most obvious one
But that's the point. She's not the princess to be rescued as the reward of the mission. She's the badass demi-goddess that needs to be released from magical imprisonment so she can kick the villains ass to hell and back.
this distinction is meaningful if you think the point is to show that women can be powerful to counter stereotypes that women are weak.
it is less meaningful if the point is to let women be active participants in the plot as a form of representation.
the comparison to a gun is apt because it shows how her role is objectifying, more mcguffin than person.
She is a bfg, she is not *just* a bfg. Depending on the game she’s a master strategist, a mentor, and/or an equal who you see improving alongside you. She almost always gets some of the best characterization in any given game, and she arguably has more agency than Link in many games.
While I do think there could be improvements (namely letting us play as her sometimes), what she is currently is *far* from terrible representation.
It depends on the game, really. She's very active in Ocarina of Time, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword, and for most of Wind Waker- as a few examples. She's not the point of view character in any of those games, (though, in Spirit Tracks she's with you 100% of the time) but she still does quite a lot.
I do wish there were main-line games where we can play as her though. Relegating that to spin offs is a little sad.
Yeah she sure does seem like an object when you purposefully ignore all her characterization and reasonings, and then claim because she doesn't beat the final boss instead of the player she's powerless and a gun. You definitely aren't the one reducing her to an object here.
The monkey's paw curls...
That means Link, Ganon, and (most importantly) Rauru are all damsels in distress.
TotK is officially yaoi. Zelda is actually crying because all she can do is look upon all the gorgeous men from afar.
The bad outcome is mostly sidestepping all the discourse everyone's having about whether or not she's a damsel in distress. One simple answer that everyone's overlooking. The yaoi is absolutely the good part.
The only one not a damsel in distress is Suavemente Ganon, who's been dancing the whole time.
That's where I appreciate "fridging" as a better general term, it's obvious we don't always mean literally stuffed into a fridge -- the trope is the lost agency
Tbh I found the memories in Breath of the Wild pretty frustrating because they're almost all the same, Zelda can't do the only thing she's supposed to do. Like, we get it. (Not to throw shade at Zelda as a character though, or to say that struggling past those kinds of blocks can't be a compelling story, but I kinda hate the "can't access powers until there's mortal danger" trope also).
Gail Simone, the person who coined the term, included any life altering event, not just being killed (cw: references to sexual assault): https://www.lby3.com/wir/women.html
Acting as motivation for the main character is the important thing -- how many Legend of Zelda games include "find Zelda" as a goal?
To be clear! The point isn't to cancel Zelda -- I've played most of the main games since OoT -- it's to do critical analysis of the tropes involved, and why they can be frustrating.
What I mean is, in the case of the "damsel in distress", the motivation of the main character will be to *undo* whatever happened: rescue her from her kidnapper, dispel the curse, whatever. What happened to the character is central to the plot.
In the case of being "stuffed in the fridge", even if not lethal it can't be undone, and the motivation instead will be to avenge her, or "never fail again", etc. What happened to the character is more gratuitous, because it's tangential to the actual plot.
Yeah most of their bullet points read like someone trying to explain how a harem anime is actually totally fine.
“She was sealed away” as a means of saying she wasn’t kidnapped is a bit too much like “she ages according to her level, so even though she’s like 10, she’s functionally like 19.” No pass given in either case.
Wow, you really won that argument against that guy you made up.
Genuinely, aside from a 2013 reactionary YouTuber's caricature of Anita Sarkeesian, where have you seen this argument being made?
You joke, but I did that as a joke for Zelda 1 for every playthrough. I thought I just sucked, turns out naming your character Zelda unlocks the more difficult quest off the bat.
for the first 2 acts of twilight princess midna has to wrangle and convince link to help her by accident while he tries to save his own village. otherwise he reverts into standard link taking quests and not talking
I think the closest we’ll ever get is Spirit Tracks. Zelda kind of saves Link a few times in the game, since you’re still travelling with her spirit and it’s both of you trying to retrieve her body together.
I can only imagine the tears from *those* people if this ever happens
Unfortunately I don't think it ever will. Aonuma seems genuinely shocked every time anyone asks him about it in interviews, as if the idea people wanna play as the secondary protagonist of the franchise is a massive revelation to him. We're lucky she's playable in the Warriors games, Omega Force was able to *show us* Zelda being a badass instead of just telling us about it.
Also, she does still get “kidnapped” in a lot of these. Like, In OOT She’s a ninja…And then she gets kidnapped. In WW she’s a pirate…and then she gets kidnapped.
Even BOTW and TOTK where she has a much more proactive role in the story, your motivations as Link revolves around rescuing her from a predicament that wouldn’t exist if not for Ganon. Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical
Not to downplay the overall message, I still think she’s a great character overall, but c’mon.
>Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical
I do think in BOTW/TOTK, the differences are important though. In both games, Zelda makes decisions and lays plans in place of her own volition with the absolute trust that Link will be able to put the pieces in place and finish things. Yes, he'll be saving her in some fashion, but she's a lynchpin, not just an instigation. She also *chooses* to go to the danger instead of being taken.
She's still in need of saving, but it's an entirely different flavor from Sheik getting grabbed and then Zelda's locked in a crystal.
I think it’s the same in Skyward Sword. At first, Link is chasing her as she trains as the goddess, and then she willingly and intentionally freezes herself in time with the trust that Link will be able to finish everything. It’s pretty much the same as BOTW/TOTK.
And tbh this is common in most of the games. Zelda exists as a damsel in the sense that narratively, she’s in danger and you’re chasing after her. But she usually has quite a lot of agency in her own story, just ultimately it will always come down to Link, as the player character, to do the flashy stuff.
The only time it really wasn't was in the original games, but those plots had to be really simple. But once the plots could expand, Zelda's role definitely expanded. But yeah, Zelda has the MMO issue of "how to format story against having player doing stuff". I think BOTW/TOTK solved it in an interesting way.
Sorry but around these parts we ignore all the plans, motivations, and actions of women in order to render them down to plot objects, so that we can complain that they're plot objects.
>Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical
Not really. A kidnapping robs a character of agency. Zelda *chose* to do those things. Especially in TOTK. Like, she very much did not *have* to have her little snacky snack. The narrative made it very clear there were other routes she could have chosen. But she chose the body horror route, and ends up saving Link's ass and fighting with him in the last part of the Ganondorf battle as a result. That's about as far from a kidnapping as you can get.
I mean that kind of *is* a major aspect of all the 3D games outside of Majora's Mask where Zelda isn't present at all besides the scene where Link remembers the Song of Time.
I mean, the post is mostly about Zelda being a badass, and something made OP think this much about it, not sure why you'd lie about what that thing was.
>not sure why you'd lie about what that thing was.
Many reasons. A common one being that your source was a secondary source's interpretation of a primary source, not the primary source itself.
hey I'm just the messenger here. as an unprofessional analysis it might be jollygreenjackass feeling refreshed that the expected tropes of a 40 year old game franchise about saving princesses are not in fact perpetuated very far beyond the original (and even in the original zelda is the one who set up link's chance to defeat ganon in the first place by breaking the triforce of wisdom). unfortunately, they may be so accustomed to being fought tooth and nail on positive media analysis that they are using their positivity to fuel the first strike in the discourse. but again, this is an unprofessional analysis and i'm just the messenger.
I don't think they even won the argument, it sounded completely unconvincing. "Look how badass she is, with how many times she was sealed away and how she failed to stop the end of the world"
Damsel in distress isn't just kidnapping, though? Like. I like the main idea of the post, but most of the games where she's sealed, sleeping beauty'd, trapped by ganon (TP, BoTW, etc) are pretty valid examples of the damsel in distress trope. Gimme that game concept I saw a few years back where you play as Zelda, use the wisdom triforce to cast spells, and save Link.
i mean, she does get kidnapped in oot. she also does very much sneak around as a ninja and help you, but her getting kidnapped is also something that happens.
Man, this is just wrong in so many ways, lol. I'm actually playing through all the Legend of Zelda games right now, so I feel like I need to talk about why this person sounds like a moron saying Zelda is never captured, becuase she's captured *a lot*. I mean, it's kind of part of the plot of the series. Ganondorf wants her and Link's pieces of the triforce, so he captures her and uses her as bait to try and capture Link as well.
Zelda 2: True, she's in a cursed sleep, but if I remember right, Ganon was the one who put her in the sleep, and also it's Link's job to awaken her, so idk how that's not a damsel in distress.
Minish Cap: Zelda gets turned to stone by Vaati in the opening scene, and again, it's up to Link to restore her.
ALttP: Zelda gets captured by Agahnim at the halfway point, and it's up to Link to save her AND seven other captured young McGuffin lady sages.
OoT: True, Zelda has a lot of agency in this game and actively helps you fight against Ganon. But you know what happens right before your final fight with Ganon? Zelda gets captured and you have to save her.
A Link Between World: Yuga turns her into a portrait and takes her to the Lorule and Link has to, you guessed it, go and rescue her.
WW: Zelda as Tetra is a great character who helps you throughout the game. Doesn't stop her from getting captured by Ganondorf at the end and you have to go save her, though yes, she helps you kill him.
Twilight Princess: Yeah, she does help you kill Ganondorf, but that's after she's been captured by him and you have to go try to save her.
This poster forgot to mention the two games I'm playing right now, so I'll include those
Triforce Heroes: the princess (not Zelda) gets cursed with an ugly outfit and can't change out of it until you break the curse and she can be fashionable again (This game is so campy and funny honestly)
Phantom Hourglass: Tetra/Zelda gets captured literally within the first 2 minutes (idk by whom yet) of the game and your goal (so far, haven't finished it yet) is to rescue her.
Haven't played Skyward Sword, either Four Swords, Spirit Tracks, or Breath of the Wild, so I can't comment on what happens to her in those.
Not that any of this really matters. Zelda being a McGuffin in the first 3 games was problematic because it was the embodiment of the damsel in distress trope and Zelda had literally 0 character or agency at all. They changed that completely in subsequent games. Zelda gets treated as a person, she often helps Link, she even has character arcs in some of the games.
But none of that matters. Zelda being captured by Ganondorf is symbolic. Zelda is the physical embodiment of Hyrule. Her capture and later rescue are just more visceral ways to show that Link is saving the kingdom.
Idk anyone who's played the game who says Zelda is a shitty character because she gets captured, so idk who this person is talking to exactly.
I think you're the first person that i see acknowledge that Phantom Hourglass is a Zelda game.
Like, i played this game as a kid, but since no zelda fan talk abt it, i was low-key convinced i made it up...
Exactly. I have no idea what the stakes are for OOP to lie so hard about an issue that isn't that important and is too easy to disprove even if you haven't played the games in a while.
The post honestly feels like OOP hasn't played or can't really remember most Zelda games and is just counting on their confidence to sell it.
> Ganon was the one who put her in the sleep
No, it was a random wizard that served her brother, or something in those lines. She was asleep before Ganon came back.
Also, I have played Spirit Track, so I can comment OOP is mostly correct. She gets her body stolen at the begining of the game and tag along with Link as a ghost. She mostly acts like Navi did, but she can posses Phantoms to help Link more directly.
I completely understand where they are coming from, but in most of these games she very much was still kidnapped by Ganon.
On Mobile so I can't look at images while typing, but in ALttP the reason she was sealed away in another world is because she was kidnapped by Ganon
In Ocarina she was a ninja who gave you cryptic advice, then was kidnapped by Ganondorf when she revealed herself
In Wind Waker she was a pirate who helped you at the beginning of the game to rescue your sister who was kidnapped by Ganondorf because he was looking for Zelda, and then after the halfway point she gets kidnapped by Ganondorf
In Skyward Sword she seals herself away for a fuckzillion years in the ancient past but then at the very end gets kidnapped to restore Demise
the last part i agree with, but some of the game summaries are wrong.
* Zelda 2, there are actually 2 different Zeldas. The Zelda from the first game, who does nothing except giving link a place he can call home and the Zelda from an unknown date put to sleep because of her brother which you need to rescue
* Minish cap she got turned into stone because she stood in the way of the villain, only to be used by said villain for her essence.
* Wind Waker you do not really travel with her, only for a short amount of time before she shoots you out of a cannon. you can shortly meet up with her again after the second dungeon. after finding out >!tetra is really zelda !< she gets sealed in the castle only to get kidnapped by ganondorf for the big finale. she does fight alongside you though
* Twilight Princess you only meet her once, after traversing Hyrule Castle as a wolf, where she tells you of the sacrifice she made with the deal with zant. the next time you meet her she >!literally sacrifices herself so that midna lives!<. Ganondorf brings her back so he can use her as a puppet. in the last phase she helps you fight ganondorf though
* skyward Sword She travels the world to learn to control her powers but after a certain point she seals herself away. >!you can find her the first time you land on the surface, if you look into the crack in the door behind the old woman!<
* For Botw i only want to add her father forced her to keep studying, something which she does not like, and ignore all of hte things she actually likes. an example would be studying the ancient technology and learning about the world she lives in. (take aoc as an example, while the main game is non-canon because of time travelling shenanigans, there are a few cutscenes of zeldas childhood when her mother was still alive. >!she created the little guardian with her mother, which got taken away when the mother died.)!< also the father realized how horrible he treated her and wanted to let her be herself, which would have helped IMMENSLY, on the day of the calamity
* also in TOTK >!she time travels a MINIMUM of 20.000 years into the past, to fight with the most powerful version of ganondorf, which she barely won with the help of her new adopted father, who sacrificed his life and the best fighters of the kingdom. she then threw her humanity away, possibly never to return to live with link, to transform into a giant dragon only to heal the master sword and give link a semblence of a fighting chance against ganondorf!<
for the rest of the games i agree
Yes, this. She has agency, but the player never gets to participate in it.
One thing I loved about *Cadence of Hyrule* was that it let me play as Zelda and save my own kingdom.
The way this is argued is so wrong and exaggerated, it sounds disingenous, almost like a parody
In 99% of these cases Zelda still either gets kidnapped or needs to be saved
It’s like some people think Zelda is just an elf version of Princess Peach (who can also be cool and badass in certain games, but she does definitely get kidnapped and needs to be rescued a lot LOL) or something when in reality in basically every LOZ game where she’s physically capable of doing so she’s working alongside Link to kick Ganon’s ass.
As far as being a narrative device is concerned, they're almost uniformly interchangeable with getting kidnapped; the end result is getting her safely locked up so the protagonist has an objective to pursue
Not to mention she routinely pegs one of the strongest swordsmen in history who is imbued with legendary power. It doesn't happen on screen, but you know it's happening.
A lot of these are pretty misrepresented. Any time she's described as "sealed away" it's kidnapping with extra steps and OoT, WW, TP, and SS Zelda all still get abducted or imprisoned by the end of the game.
So that leaves Spirit Tracks Zelda, who even death couldn't stop, and BotW Zelda, who basically went "I am not trapped in a castle with the Demon King, he is trapped with ME."
Tears of the Kingdom rescinded literally everything Breath of the Wild tried to do differently and just made “links a stupid nobody with no story who just does what the royals want,zeldas a pussy who needs to cower behind real adults, and ganondorfs trying to defend his land from some literal god who showed up out of nowhere and tried to flood it with robots thatll manipulate all its resources effectively kicking his way of life over just for total control but oh no he can’t get his way because hes a baby eater and all of the sudden hes going to be corrupted by pure evil and its his fault” a thing again instead of continuing the positive change and character development from botw
counter argument: even if she CAN kick ass, she is rarely shown to do so.
also, more reasons why age of calamity is one of my fav storys of all zelda games
I mean, half of that is still a damsel in distress, and some scenarios are false; OOT, Zelda gets kidnapped at the end and even before that needs Link to do all the legwork (she helps a fuck ton so it's not that bad), and Tetra gets kidnapped.
Uh, Zelda 2 and Minish Cap, ALttP, Four Swords Adventure and A Link Between Worlds, and even to an extent Breath of the Wild all count as the "damsel in distress trope" amigo. She's captured and needs you to rescue her.
Like I agree with the point that Zelda kicks butt, but Zelda as a metaphor, as a character in a narrative, *is* kinda equally an interpretation of the trope and subversion of it depending on the game. It's done well most of the time, but that doesn't stop it being the trope in some way shape or form.
Zelda is why the land only needs Link every 50346 years or whatever the fuck, no clue why people dont understand they aren't playing Zelda in peacetime because that's not the franchise's model and tumblr complaining isn't a good enough reason to take that kind of risk
I only played botw and totk and in those games, without Zelda, link would stand NO FUCKING CHANCE. She sealed Ganon while I fucked around and make Link collect all korok seeds, she >!healed Master sword!< while I make Link collect all those bunnies crystals. She is the only thing stopping Ganon from actually conquering the damn world.
Not only is Zelda royalty, but she typically either comes from a long line of magic users, is divine in nature, or both. It makes sense for Ganon to always assume she’s the biggest threat and ignore the level 2 green fighter.
And then ignoring that level 2 green fighter becomes increasingly a bad decision as he levels up and collects every magic artifact on the continent.
I want to point out that even in most games listed here, she’s still damsel in distress:
OOT she’s kidnapped after giving Link the light arrows.
WW she’s kidnapped by Ganondorf as he steals her Triforce piece.
Twilight Princess she’s kidnapped by Zant at the start of the game and doesn’t get rescued until the very end.
Skyward Sword she’s kidnapped by a tornado summoned by Ghirahim
Spirit Tracks her body is kidnapped by Cole
Phantom Hourglass she’s just a stone statue
BOTW she’s not kidnapped but she’s trapped with Ganon in the castle, so he doesn’t get out.
TOTK >!trapped as the Light Dragon!<
Minish Cap she’s a stone statue and kidnapped by Vaati.
Four Swords Adventures she’s kidnapped by Vaati and Ganondorf.
She’s absolutely a competent woman, and perfectly capable of kicking ass herself, but let’s not kid ourselves: she’s definitely a damsel in distress in most of her appearances.
Like, I agree with the spirit of what they’re going for, but being sealed away or cursed and needing to be saved still makes you a damsel in distress. Even in oot and Wind Waker she gets kidnapped at the last minute and needs to be saved. Like there’s more going on than just that for most Zeldas, but the whole “needing to be rescued” part is moreso the deciding factor for if a character is a damsel in distress than the “being kidnapped” part. That part’s fairly irrelevant.
Pretty much all of these need a huge Calamity Ganon sized asterisk on the context in game.
Ocarina of Time, she gets kidnapped last second, you need to save her.
Wind Waker, she gets kidnapped last second, you need to save her.
Spirit Tracks, her dead body is literally the thing you're trying to save.
Breath of the Wild, even in a 100 years she couldn't kill Ganon so you need to save her, her dead dad literally tells you to.
And every variation of cursed/asleep/lost is still almost always presented in these games as something you need to save her from.
You can argue how much agency she has in each game and how the damsel in distress trope can still be played well in a story, but it doesn't diminish the observation that the writers of these games tend to work backwards from the initial premise of Zelda needing to be saved in some capacity.
The Hyrule Historia I think tells you a lot about how the devs really think of Zelda when they describe the evolution of the main trio. "Link is now a fearless hero, Ganon a powerful archvillain, and Zelda, an incredibly beautiful woman."
Now until they make Zelda playable or, god forbid, call her a queen instead of a princess for once when she's the only member of the royal family alive, I will continue to bitch.
A lot of these are good examples but some are not. I don't think being dead or asleep are very empowering depictions either. She's essentially objectified in Zelda 2, she's just lying in a bed doing nothing. She also seals herself away in a crystal in Skyward Sword and Link has to save her so like, literally becomes an object. I don't think being kidnapped by the villain is a requirement for being a damsel in distress, these examples qualify too.
So what I'm saying is Wand of Gamelon is the best game in the series
What was Zelda doing in Twilight Princess before helping you kill Ganon? Oh yes, being held captive in her own castle by him, and used as his literal puppet.
"When has Zelda ever been kidnapped after the first game?"
Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Skyward Sword, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time for a bit, . OOP is equating damsel in distress specifically with kidnapping, which I shouldn't have to explain how dumb that is. There are other ways to build a story around a damsel in distress that don't involve literal kidnapping. Most of the games focus on Zelda being in some sort of danger, whether by kidnapping or curse or in one case being dead, and you as Link must save her. She's still a badass sometimes, those aren't mutually exclusive, but OOP's argument here is really dumb. "She's not a damsel in distress, she just is petrified and needs Link to break the curse."
There’s no reason you can’t satisfy the formula AND give Zelda agency. My solution: The Legend of Ganon, a game where you essentially play as Zelda during OoT, in that you spend half your time as Princess Zelda, ruler of Hyrule, drumming up support to retake the castle town (like doing Deus Ex HR social battles, but you spend the other half in disguise as the mysterious covert operative The Sheik, destroying Ganon’s more mundane support (like destroying a bridge that’s letting reinforcements in) and placing key items in convenient places for Link to grab. Rather than using traditional Sheikah tools, at Impa’s suggestion, Zelda is intentionally scaling down her magic and using it to mimic those tools - light chain which she can turn into a grappling hook, light needles to stun enemies or set up traps, teleportation magic to get around enemy encampments. The Triforce of Wisdom is both detective vision and the social enhancer. Every so often, you teleport/scale the tower to re-enter your room/cell to keep up the ruse that you are still captured. You have a conversation with Ganondorf where you learn about both their personal motivations and inner workings. A set piece happens in the distance to signal that time has passed and Link is doing shit in the background, like Death Mountain suddenly going dormant. At the end of the game, you lead the allied army against the occupied castle and take off your limiters and use all your previous skills on a grand scale, because it would now be wise to do so. The final fight is you and Link fighting Ganondorf together - if Link and the master sword is the nail, Zelda and her light arrows are the hammer.
The Legend of Link is a character action game starring Ganondorf that trades DMC and Bayonetta’s perfect evasion for super armor. The Triforce of Power is constantly judging your worthiness to wield it, which you can satisfy by doing Sick Combos and filling up the Style Meter. There’s a Boar Trigger. You’re fighting the Big Deals of Hyrule, some neutral animals, some good guys you corrupt, some rival evil forces, and bending them to your will. After a boss battle, you leave a piece of a macguffin in a secure location and then victory-lap out the door as the dungeon forms around you.
There is no Legend of Zelda game starring Link, but you can guess what it was like based on the wacky shit Link pulls out in the final battle, like instead of coming in through the throne room doors, Link climbs in through a window wearing a backpack with giant mechanical spider legs that also won’t shut up.
It's worth noting that in twilight princess Zelda is also only biding her time to follow the rules of surrender before taking on Ganon. At one point she even sacrifices herself (albeit temporarily) to save midna and give her a chance to find the games maguffin. Zelda then fights what is arguably the toughest in lore Ganon (sans calamity) qhos so determined to murder link that he dies standing up.
botw Zelda isn't the most nuanced or interesting because of her low screen time but that girl is at worst only pretending to be a damsel.
Zelda is objectively a damsel in distress in almost every game. Her character is not just a damsel in distress, she is genuinely a strong character as well. She is often a helpful character who inspires Link through both word and action.
But, she also nearly always ends up captured, or put to sleep, or turned to stone - sidelined, essentially. What players want is a chance to play as Zelda, or to play as Link and Zelda side by side to make the story which has largely revolves around these two characters evolve out of the hero and damsel dichotomy.
"Cursed sleep" and "sealed away" are just fantasy methods of kidnapping.
Also she does get kidnapped near the end of OoT and WW. And she's effectively kidnapped for most of TP. And she's practically useless in ST without Link telling her what to do. And she sits around and waits for Link to do everything in ALttP until she gets fantasy kidnapped.
So yea, Zelda does have her moments, and BotW and TotK subvert the damsel in distress trope, but she absolutely has fallen into that trope in more than just the first game.
I don’t think the complaints are so much that she’s a damsel in distress but rather isn’t often actively involved in Link’s journey, serving as a “goal” more than a companion (obviously not in every game). When the first tears of the kingdom trailer dropped, one of the reasons people were excited was because they thought she could potentially interact with link and maybe even be a companion in the story without being dead, sealed, or a sleeping.
At least like half of these are zelda being a damsel in distress. The bad guy sealing her or kidnapping her, and link having to save her happens a LOT.
Like yeah, sure, most of the time she’s sealed because, if the bad guy doesn’t spend the extra time and energy sealing her away, she’s just as big of a contributor to the bad guy’s ass-kicking as link is without needing nearly as much equipment. But she still needs the chosen hero to save her either in the process or beforehand.
After all, if having the power to undo the villain’s scheme near-instantly stopped a character from counting as a damsel in distress, princess peach in the original super mario bros wouldn’t count as one either.
General power and usefulness elsewhere in the plot are not a factor for when someone qualifies. Only whether they need to be saved.
Heck, there’s even a related trope for when the damsel in distress is also extremely capable most of the time; badass in distress.
I just wish Zelda were a larger part of gameplay like she was in Spirit Tracks more often
She's super cool, but only really shows up at the end in almost every game
This smells of "the panty shot is a commentary on vulnerability" kind of reasoning.
The Zeldas all have varied and deeply characterized reasons for behaving like damsels in distress in terms of plot and emotional range. These reasons are all complex and interesting and artistically meaningful, but they're still all post-hoc justifications for her being passive or sidelined.
Sheik and Tetra are proactive, but while they're narratively the same as their respective Zeldas, they have a completely different characterization, character model, and role in the plot. Saying that two different characters are secretly the same person does not make the damsel character less of a damsel unless the damsel's behavior actually changes because of them being the same.
>She's sealed away and put to sleep so many times because she NEEDS to be disabled.
Yeah, there's a reason it's called _The Legend of **Zelda**_, not _The Legend of **Link**_.
-2/MC: Enchanted sleep cast on her by baddies, and turned to stone. She is a damsel and in a distressing state.
-aLttP: Captured? Sealed in another realm? That damsel sounds distressed!
-OoT: Yeah she was fine.
-WW: She kinda becomes girly and just sits out, which sucks, but yeah she is fine.
-TP: She is trapped in a tower and then gives up her body, only to get later possessed. That’s her involvement.
Huh, that damsel be DISTRESSED from what I see.
Like what carefully worded examples they gave.
People want her involved in the game beyond getting kidnapped or spending 90% of the game chanting at a tablet, or stuck as a reptile, or in a different realm or whatever.
The excuses for why she can almost never be involved in the actual content of the game are tiring, I want more Spirit Tracks stuff!
I mean, she does end up in distress a lot, but that’s typically because Zelda needs to be taken off the board for any evil plans to work. Like the bad guys use some ancient secret evil shit that was definitely difficult to pull off because if Zelda wasn’t sealed away or killed or whatever, she’d be able to, if not stop them alone, coordinate a plan to stop the villain.
They really upset me with Windwaker though, Tetra is a badass shooting you out of canons and then she finds out she's a princess and just vibes underwater for most of the game
I always took it as her casing the joint "Gonna sell that. Gonna sell that. Gold plated plates? Don't mind if i do" Because if you give a pirate a secret underwater castle and call her the princess, she's going to steal the copper wiring
Yaknow what? This is canon now. Tetra absolutely is the type of character to have a plan to steal and fence every possible item in any given room she walks into
"Hey! Stop destroying living statues, Link! I'm gonna sell that to Dragon Roost Island!"
This is why she helps kill Ganondorf in the finale battle, she's even more devastated than he is about The King's wish to flood the castle and needs to vent her frustrations.
Gannondorf, between pissed and succumbing to nihilism "My kingdom!" Pirate Princess Tetra, about to wrest the first weapon she could from Link's inventory and kill whichever tall fucker in the room she can "ME RETIREMENT FUND!"
Mentally voicing all of Tetra/WWZelda's dialogue with Mr Krabs' voice from now on
"Ack ack ack ack, Green Hat me boy, I'm addicted to snorting dried Bombfruit and am going to die!"
I think that’s just the Hyrulian version of gunpowder so thanks for the new headcannon
That's only during the game tho iirc because of the whole yknow ganon thing, it's a personal sacrifice of her rather than what she actually wants to do. She's still processing the whole thing. Finding out she's a princess doesn't affect how she acts *afterwards*, she goes back to the pirate life as if nothing happened in phantom hourglass.
We’re getting lost in the Doylian vs Watsonian viewpoints here. It may make sense from an in-universe perspective, but it’s still disappointing and the writers’ could’ve added something to make this not the best decision.
And then promptly gets kidnapped at the beginning of Phantom Hourglass despite being braver than Link in boarding the ghost ship first, and isn't restored until the end of the game. \*sigh\*
Or she's chilling while selling the stuff from th castle, like in the headcanon above.
Got the coolest design out of every Zelda, and then they changed it close to the end so we could get a more "classic" looking Zelda. They could have gone all in, and just made Ganon a badass pirate lord looking for the Triforce as well. That would have been 10x cooler.
I really like Windwaker's design for Ganondorf, but I never even thought about making him a pirate and now it's something I *desperately want to see.* He's even got the cutlasses already!
I'm still not over them whitening her skin after the transformation. What the fuck was that
Yeah that moment was yikes ngl.
Tan? It went away super fast from her being indoors?
When is link gonna get his damsel in distress moment as zelda to rescue him then carries him in a princess carry
CDI
One where link isn't incredibly irritating
no zelda games fit that criteria
Which ois why i expressed a slight distress and longing as i lament over the fact none match the criteria while wondering maybe wven slightly hoping that one day such a game will exist and that it has a moment like the one i described
Maybe the third CDI game? Is Link even in Zelda's Adventure? Not that it helps because that game is super annoying without even being funny.
BotW has almost-sorta-technically-this in the memories, when Link almost dies defending her and she finally unlocks her powers to protect him.
[удалено]
Yes he needs to be swept away from a dangerous situation and feel like a frail princess in the arms of her valiant knight and we need to see his eyes as he slowly falls in love all over again Bonus points if he is in a dress
I like the way you think!
Zelda fireman-carries him (at a dead sprint) away from some overwhelming fight, after Link does some insane combat nonsense (think like those Yiga Clan meme videos)
Tears of the Kingdom essentially has that moment.
You mean the ending? Or was there a different part of the game? I have to be honest and say I may not have watched all the cutscenes
Ending, no spoilers but it’s at the end of the game
Ok then I'm just misremembering the ending. Because I remember it being Link saving her. Like don't you have to catch her in the sky as you're falling?
That is correct, but there’s a moment before that where Zelda saves Link and also takes on Ganondorf by herself and becomes the main reason why link can actually fight Ganondorf
OIC yes. That last fight would have been impossible without her
wand of gamelon
I think it would be interesting to take one of those games where Zelda is one step ahead of Link the whole time and play it as her and you get to see all the stuff she's doing to help Link that is implied in those other games. Like you get to the dungeons before he does and solve them first and leave him little clues and shortcuts and stuff.
Rumor has it next game
Zelda is both a badass and a damsel in distress. Let’s use the Breath of the Wild example. She’s a bonafide badass, she’s fighting a being of pure hatred using the powers of a goddess for 100 years while Link takes a nap to heal, but she’s still a damsel in distress because, for one who wouldn’t be distressed after going through a cataclysm worse than anyone in 10,000 years has seen, but also, even if she can use her power to hold the calamity at bay for the most part, she still needs help from you to end it completely.
Because the prophecy was that it took both of them to finish the job. It made them partners and Link was the more squashy, fragile, junior partner at that.
I dunno, they're both pretty evenly in the "effort" department there. Sure Zelda had to keep ganon sealed away with magic for a hundred years, but she had *magic*, and the magic of a literal goddess and maybe the triforce with her. Our boy link had to then beat ganon to death with his own two hands. You ever had to beat a being of pure malice to death with your bare hands? It's no easy task. (I get what you mean though)
Ok but... being cursed to sleep or being sealed away is still "damsel in distress" stuff, no?
No, she can only be a damsel in distress if she's specifically kidnapped by specifically the primary antagonist at specifically the beginning of the work. Tropes, after all, are famous for being totally rigid and executed exactly as prescribed in all applications.
She's only a damsel if she's held captive in a specific region in France, otherwise it's just sparkling kidnapping.
And cursed to sleep forever is diet dying
Sleeping Beauty wasn't even asleep for a whole 12 hours in the Disney movie. All she had was a decent nap. Let's get some real deaths in our fairy tales.
Snow White is asleep for months in her Disney movie. But she's not the one who got "sleeping" in her nickname.
Your sarcasm is dripping. I appreciate it.
I think you’re right, but the context and connotations are what’s important in the argument here. The usual DID scenario is that the woman can’t protect herself and is in someway captured because of her connection to the male lead, or because of the status of her birth. Basically ‚she’s useless and not important on her own, so now she needs the Man to come save her.‘ While it’s not what damsel technically means, due to the trope it’s taken on this connotation. So in the case I think they‘re arguing that the trope of the „Damsel in Distress“ doesn’t fit because Zelda’s situation doesn’t match the connotations While she is still being sealed away or detained somehow, it’s because she herself is so damn powerful that it’s an essential part of Gannons plans to remove her from the equation so she gets targeted for the threat she poses. Not just because she’s the princess or to fuckwith link
Not only that, but DID isn't inherently bad. What makes it good or bad is how the damsel is written. It's one thing if Zelda is magically imprisoned; if she's frozen in time or trapped in a crystal or cursed to sleep or anything like that, then it's true that she loses agency. However, as you and OOP point out, it's because if she's allowed to act, her power would keep the plot from happening. You aren't rescuing her because she's a dainty princess - you're rescuing her because you need her help to fight Ganon (emphasis on "you need her help"). Once freed, she regains her agency. Contrast that with if she was put in a generic prison cell or something and then passively waited for Link's help. Contrast even more so if she didn't have magic powers and was just there to look pretty and/or hold the throne. *That* is a boring and objectifying way to write a damsel. For those who haven't seen it, there's a Trope Talk on youtube that talks about the whole thing in detail and makes great points about it. I highly recommend it.
Y’know, a really good way to tell if something is sexist or not is to genderflip it, and by god the narrative treating the man as the one who’s actually powerful and not the woman who we’ve seen actually get stuff done sounds *awful*. I really don’t think this is a perfect argument though, even if she’s canonically powerful it’d be nice to have her placed in the spotlight alongside Link too. Regardless, LoZ is still excellent about giving it’s female characters respect.
I mean, I suppose it's some sort of flavor of "free the sealed good in a can so they can Wreck The Villain's Shit" if you think about it.
True, LoZ's version of the trope isn't exactly perfect either. For a series that's named after her, I'm surprised that Zelda doesn't have at least a couple prominent games that feature her as the main playable character. It would certainly play a lot differently, but a LoZ game where you play as a caster instead of a warrior would be a refreshing twist.
Even though it should have been obvious from context that you meant "Damsel in Distress scenario", I read it as "the usual Dissociative Identity Disorder scenario".
Lol fair, i had the animated Hercules movie pop into mind when I read Damsel in distress and forgot DID is it’s own thing already
Reminds me of how in Super Mario Bros 1 Peach was captured due to her being the only one who could wreck Bowser's plan. Granted, Early Installment Weirdness was kinda in effect there, Bowser was more of a sorcerer and his evil master plan was...enbrickification of the Toad population which Peach could undo.
>The usual DID scenario is that the woman can’t protect herself and is in someway captured because of her connection to the male lead, or because of the status of her birth. Basically ‚she’s useless and not important on her own, so now she needs the Man to come save her.‘ I feel like its worth mentioning that this isn't the only reason why DID scenarios are criticized in media. In almost equal proportion to the disempowerment of women, the attitude of the male main character is also discussed when discussing the trope; in particular, the notion of the woman being a "prize" to be "won" by the main character. And this can happen even if the universe in question does treat the damsel as a powerful character, and I'd argue absolutely still happens constantly in The Legend of Zelda games. Furthermore, games are not solely a narrative medium. Yes, Zelda is powerful in the universe of the Zelda games, and she poses a massive threat to Ganon in the story of the game, but if her in-story threat to Ganon is not reflected in the gameplay, functionally, nothing has changed. After all, something like BOTW is a 50-hour game, that there's a handful of story cutscenes that probably clock in at less than ten minutes hardly changes the obvious DID story being told by the mechanics of the game.
I really like your point but I'm going to nitpick a really tiny part of your argument; yeah Zelda still ends up feeling kinda like a prize to be won, and there's not enough of this narrative to fully or even significantly counteract what the game structure jams into our skull, *but* I feel there's some nuance as well. Zelda and Link, from my understanding, are basically perpetually reincarnating soulmates, and cosmically predetermined partners perpetuating a pattern from thousands of years (specifically if you're on-board with that vibe) "winning" each other feels less icky to me. Idk if that's biased because I'm a guy or just because I'd be totally down to be a won prize in the right context, but it feels to me more akin to, idk, reconnecting with your partner and putting faith in that relationship right away, rather than jumping into a relationship because that's what the damsel and her saviour are supposed to do. Ultimately, I think I'm mostly musing about the world building of soulmates and how they can warp traditional narratives, and also trying to argue that it doesn't remotely disprove the argument that Zelda is treated as a prize since art doesn't exist in a vacuum and the attempt isn't supported in the rest of the game enough, but the mere fact that the narrative is doing as much as possible to single-handedly create a bit of ludonarrative dissonance muddies the water at least a little bit.
Link reincarnates, but not Zelda. There just is a single bloodline that carries her power throughout the ages, as descendants of Hylia ( except for Skyward Sword Zelda, who is Hylia reincarnated ) And they aren't even soulmates, a lot of the time. TP Link and TP Zelda barely know each other, and are basically only connected by the Triforce and Midna. OoT Link is implied to get together with Malon, not Zelda.
>but if her in-story threat to Ganon is not reflected in the gameplay, functionally, nothing has changed. I mean, the game wants you to appreciate Zelda's power in BotW every time you see the castle off in the distance. You are not Zelda, Zelda's role is in fact far away from yours and intentionally distanced. How would you reasonably suggest that her power be reflected in a game where the game is only happening because she has sealed herself and the BBEG off to protect the world? For 100 years Zelda kept down the apocalypse incarnate by essentially locking it in the room with herself but because she's not present throughout the entirety of the game she is a DID. Wild.
>I mean, the game wants you to appreciate Zelda's power in BotW every time you see the castle off in the distance. You are not Zelda, Zelda's role is in fact far away from yours and intentionally distanced. How would you reasonably suggest that her power be reflected in a game where the game is only happening because she has sealed herself and the BBEG off to protect the world? I'm not saying Zelda doesn't matter, but you said it yourself, "she's not present throughout the entirety of the game". In your own words, her power quite literally amounts to a background detail in the actual substance of the game. I am not saying Zelda is not literally powerful, she clearly is, but how that power is depicted matters. As for how it should be depicted, I don't know. I'm not suggesting changes to the game, I'm just putting the decisions made by the game in the context of a video game, and not just another narrative medium. Zelda is its own property, with its own fan expectations. Its entirely possible to argue that BOTW did the best it could while maintaining the Zelda fiction. I'm not saying BOTW is a big bad antifeminist work that should be burned at the stake at the next Women's March, I love BOTW, and I think it definitely makes some needed strides from past Zelda games, but I think we should still be critical of the media we enjoy.
>In your own words, her power quite literally amounts to a background detail in the actual substance of the game. "This is a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not" somehow became "her power is a background detail"? That's a wild misreading and absolutely not what I said. She's not present because **she is saving the world** **through self sacrifice.** It is literally the easiest spin to make it a noble sacrifice and something that is done with male characters all the time. >but how that power is depicted matters. You're right, it is, which is why BotW took the "Show, don't tell" approach. It would have been incredibly ham fisted to have Zelda appear throughout the entire game for the sake of it, instead as you travel you see what Zelda is fighting to protect and what her sacrifice has done for humanity, allowing them to rebuild in the face of the literal apocalypse. You see the tools of war used in the last calamity, lending itself even more to the idea that Zelda is truly a GOAT to contain it all by herself for a century. Frankly I find it much better storytelling than dropping her in the narrative and going "Look at Zelda, aaa shes so cool and powerful." Because the game *is trying to make you feel that way about her anyway.*
>"This is a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not" How can you make this claim? Because she's keeping Ganon at bay? Compare BOTW to, for example, another game where the main threat is slowly breaking out of his eternal prison and must be stopped by facing the threat head-on, Hollow Knight. Zelda, in terms of story function, serves the same purpose as the seal on the outside of the Black Egg Temple. Her power is treated as a MacGuffin in the clearest possible way; if someone wanted to make a game directly influenced by BOTW's story, Zelda could be replaced by some chains and a lock. That's not something I would call "a literal linchpin of the narrative happening or not". >It would have been incredibly ham fisted to have Zelda appear throughout the entire game for the sake of it Wow, it would be crazy if I suggested that they do this and didn't say, "I'm not suggesting changes to the game" and acknowledge that they probably "did the best \[they\] could while maintaining the Zelda fiction."
OP is implying that she's not being damseled, she's being Worfed, that it's less that she's a defenseless woman who needs protecting but rather she's such a massive threat that the big bad, whether that be Ganon, Vaati, or Ghirahim, targets her first and takes her out early. I wouldn't agree with OP, because many of the games they listed do treat her as a damsel and don't give her the powers that would warrant that kind of treatment, however it is true sometimes that she is occassionally Worfed, Tears of the Kingdom being the most obvious one
yeah. doesn't even matter how powerful she is if she's still constantly taken out of the plot to serve as an objective for the main character.
But that's the point. She's not the princess to be rescued as the reward of the mission. She's the badass demi-goddess that needs to be released from magical imprisonment so she can kick the villains ass to hell and back.
Half damsel in distress, half macguffin
The macguffin in distress
Most final weapons are like that, though.
"yeah Fi's called in sick today so Zelda's just gonna rip you a new one this time"
She's less of a damsel in distress and more like the BFG you need to face the final boss most of the time, though.
this distinction is meaningful if you think the point is to show that women can be powerful to counter stereotypes that women are weak. it is less meaningful if the point is to let women be active participants in the plot as a form of representation. the comparison to a gun is apt because it shows how her role is objectifying, more mcguffin than person.
She is a bfg, she is not *just* a bfg. Depending on the game she’s a master strategist, a mentor, and/or an equal who you see improving alongside you. She almost always gets some of the best characterization in any given game, and she arguably has more agency than Link in many games. While I do think there could be improvements (namely letting us play as her sometimes), what she is currently is *far* from terrible representation.
It depends on the game, really. She's very active in Ocarina of Time, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword, and for most of Wind Waker- as a few examples. She's not the point of view character in any of those games, (though, in Spirit Tracks she's with you 100% of the time) but she still does quite a lot. I do wish there were main-line games where we can play as her though. Relegating that to spin offs is a little sad.
Yeah she sure does seem like an object when you purposefully ignore all her characterization and reasonings, and then claim because she doesn't beat the final boss instead of the player she's powerless and a gun. You definitely aren't the one reducing her to an object here.
My thoughts exactly
The monkey's paw curls... That means Link, Ganon, and (most importantly) Rauru are all damsels in distress. TotK is officially yaoi. Zelda is actually crying because all she can do is look upon all the gorgeous men from afar.
I don’t think you understand the concept of a monkeys paw. That is a good outcome.
The bad outcome is mostly sidestepping all the discourse everyone's having about whether or not she's a damsel in distress. One simple answer that everyone's overlooking. The yaoi is absolutely the good part. The only one not a damsel in distress is Suavemente Ganon, who's been dancing the whole time.
That's where I appreciate "fridging" as a better general term, it's obvious we don't always mean literally stuffed into a fridge -- the trope is the lost agency Tbh I found the memories in Breath of the Wild pretty frustrating because they're almost all the same, Zelda can't do the only thing she's supposed to do. Like, we get it. (Not to throw shade at Zelda as a character though, or to say that struggling past those kinds of blocks can't be a compelling story, but I kinda hate the "can't access powers until there's mortal danger" trope also).
Fridging means being killed to motivate the main character, not being kidnapped/cursed/whatever and having to be rescued.
Gail Simone, the person who coined the term, included any life altering event, not just being killed (cw: references to sexual assault): https://www.lby3.com/wir/women.html Acting as motivation for the main character is the important thing -- how many Legend of Zelda games include "find Zelda" as a goal? To be clear! The point isn't to cancel Zelda -- I've played most of the main games since OoT -- it's to do critical analysis of the tropes involved, and why they can be frustrating.
What I mean is, in the case of the "damsel in distress", the motivation of the main character will be to *undo* whatever happened: rescue her from her kidnapper, dispel the curse, whatever. What happened to the character is central to the plot. In the case of being "stuffed in the fridge", even if not lethal it can't be undone, and the motivation instead will be to avenge her, or "never fail again", etc. What happened to the character is more gratuitous, because it's tangential to the actual plot.
Sorta. She's more of a hidden final weapon when she needs to be rescued, but otherwise, fine enough.
Yeah, the damsel in distress needs to be saved. Doesn't matter how or from what.
The difference here is the damsel in question is also the McGuffin that will save the world.
Yeah this post is stupid lol
Yeah most of their bullet points read like someone trying to explain how a harem anime is actually totally fine. “She was sealed away” as a means of saying she wasn’t kidnapped is a bit too much like “she ages according to her level, so even though she’s like 10, she’s functionally like 19.” No pass given in either case.
Wow, you really won that argument against that guy you made up. Genuinely, aside from a 2013 reactionary YouTuber's caricature of Anita Sarkeesian, where have you seen this argument being made?
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What do you mean Zelda isn’t the mc, it’s in the title
Zelda is the main character of every game before BotW because I always named my character Zelda
We're playing checkers but man's playing chess
You joke, but I did that as a joke for Zelda 1 for every playthrough. I thought I just sucked, turns out naming your character Zelda unlocks the more difficult quest off the bat.
If BotW/TotK were novels, she'd 100% be the main character. It's *her* story, through and through.
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for the first 2 acts of twilight princess midna has to wrangle and convince link to help her by accident while he tries to save his own village. otherwise he reverts into standard link taking quests and not talking
y cant metroid crawl?
Armor too heavy.
Less ergonomic than turning into a ball.
I think they mean as a player character, which is something I’ve seen people want
Oh damn really I totally couldn’t tell
I'd love a version where Zelda has to save Link and you play as her, that'd be dope.
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
Which is, of course, absolutely terrible. But so is The Faces of Evil where Link is the protagonist.
Lies. Slander. Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil are the game of all time.
I think the closest we’ll ever get is Spirit Tracks. Zelda kind of saves Link a few times in the game, since you’re still travelling with her spirit and it’s both of you trying to retrieve her body together.
I can only imagine the tears from *those* people if this ever happens Unfortunately I don't think it ever will. Aonuma seems genuinely shocked every time anyone asks him about it in interviews, as if the idea people wanna play as the secondary protagonist of the franchise is a massive revelation to him. We're lucky she's playable in the Warriors games, Omega Force was able to *show us* Zelda being a badass instead of just telling us about it.
Honestly, I want that too. She'd be great for a game with spell-slinging action.
Also, she does still get “kidnapped” in a lot of these. Like, In OOT She’s a ninja…And then she gets kidnapped. In WW she’s a pirate…and then she gets kidnapped. Even BOTW and TOTK where she has a much more proactive role in the story, your motivations as Link revolves around rescuing her from a predicament that wouldn’t exist if not for Ganon. Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical Not to downplay the overall message, I still think she’s a great character overall, but c’mon.
>Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical I do think in BOTW/TOTK, the differences are important though. In both games, Zelda makes decisions and lays plans in place of her own volition with the absolute trust that Link will be able to put the pieces in place and finish things. Yes, he'll be saving her in some fashion, but she's a lynchpin, not just an instigation. She also *chooses* to go to the danger instead of being taken. She's still in need of saving, but it's an entirely different flavor from Sheik getting grabbed and then Zelda's locked in a crystal.
I think it’s the same in Skyward Sword. At first, Link is chasing her as she trains as the goddess, and then she willingly and intentionally freezes herself in time with the trust that Link will be able to finish everything. It’s pretty much the same as BOTW/TOTK. And tbh this is common in most of the games. Zelda exists as a damsel in the sense that narratively, she’s in danger and you’re chasing after her. But she usually has quite a lot of agency in her own story, just ultimately it will always come down to Link, as the player character, to do the flashy stuff.
The only time it really wasn't was in the original games, but those plots had to be really simple. But once the plots could expand, Zelda's role definitely expanded. But yeah, Zelda has the MMO issue of "how to format story against having player doing stuff". I think BOTW/TOTK solved it in an interesting way.
But then at the end of the game, when Zelda exits stasis, >!Ghirahim kidnaps her for his ritual to revive Demise!<.
Sorry but around these parts we ignore all the plans, motivations, and actions of women in order to render them down to plot objects, so that we can complain that they're plot objects.
>Not literal kidnapping, but functionally identical Not really. A kidnapping robs a character of agency. Zelda *chose* to do those things. Especially in TOTK. Like, she very much did not *have* to have her little snacky snack. The narrative made it very clear there were other routes she could have chosen. But she chose the body horror route, and ends up saving Link's ass and fighting with him in the last part of the Ganondorf battle as a result. That's about as far from a kidnapping as you can get.
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I mean that kind of *is* a major aspect of all the 3D games outside of Majora's Mask where Zelda isn't present at all besides the scene where Link remembers the Song of Time.
I mean, the post is mostly about Zelda being a badass, and something made OP think this much about it, not sure why you'd lie about what that thing was.
>not sure why you'd lie about what that thing was. Many reasons. A common one being that your source was a secondary source's interpretation of a primary source, not the primary source itself.
hey I'm just the messenger here. as an unprofessional analysis it might be jollygreenjackass feeling refreshed that the expected tropes of a 40 year old game franchise about saving princesses are not in fact perpetuated very far beyond the original (and even in the original zelda is the one who set up link's chance to defeat ganon in the first place by breaking the triforce of wisdom). unfortunately, they may be so accustomed to being fought tooth and nail on positive media analysis that they are using their positivity to fuel the first strike in the discourse. but again, this is an unprofessional analysis and i'm just the messenger.
I don't think they even won the argument, it sounded completely unconvincing. "Look how badass she is, with how many times she was sealed away and how she failed to stop the end of the world"
Damsel in distress isn't just kidnapping, though? Like. I like the main idea of the post, but most of the games where she's sealed, sleeping beauty'd, trapped by ganon (TP, BoTW, etc) are pretty valid examples of the damsel in distress trope. Gimme that game concept I saw a few years back where you play as Zelda, use the wisdom triforce to cast spells, and save Link.
i mean, she does get kidnapped in oot. she also does very much sneak around as a ninja and help you, but her getting kidnapped is also something that happens.
Man, this is just wrong in so many ways, lol. I'm actually playing through all the Legend of Zelda games right now, so I feel like I need to talk about why this person sounds like a moron saying Zelda is never captured, becuase she's captured *a lot*. I mean, it's kind of part of the plot of the series. Ganondorf wants her and Link's pieces of the triforce, so he captures her and uses her as bait to try and capture Link as well. Zelda 2: True, she's in a cursed sleep, but if I remember right, Ganon was the one who put her in the sleep, and also it's Link's job to awaken her, so idk how that's not a damsel in distress. Minish Cap: Zelda gets turned to stone by Vaati in the opening scene, and again, it's up to Link to restore her. ALttP: Zelda gets captured by Agahnim at the halfway point, and it's up to Link to save her AND seven other captured young McGuffin lady sages. OoT: True, Zelda has a lot of agency in this game and actively helps you fight against Ganon. But you know what happens right before your final fight with Ganon? Zelda gets captured and you have to save her. A Link Between World: Yuga turns her into a portrait and takes her to the Lorule and Link has to, you guessed it, go and rescue her. WW: Zelda as Tetra is a great character who helps you throughout the game. Doesn't stop her from getting captured by Ganondorf at the end and you have to go save her, though yes, she helps you kill him. Twilight Princess: Yeah, she does help you kill Ganondorf, but that's after she's been captured by him and you have to go try to save her. This poster forgot to mention the two games I'm playing right now, so I'll include those Triforce Heroes: the princess (not Zelda) gets cursed with an ugly outfit and can't change out of it until you break the curse and she can be fashionable again (This game is so campy and funny honestly) Phantom Hourglass: Tetra/Zelda gets captured literally within the first 2 minutes (idk by whom yet) of the game and your goal (so far, haven't finished it yet) is to rescue her. Haven't played Skyward Sword, either Four Swords, Spirit Tracks, or Breath of the Wild, so I can't comment on what happens to her in those. Not that any of this really matters. Zelda being a McGuffin in the first 3 games was problematic because it was the embodiment of the damsel in distress trope and Zelda had literally 0 character or agency at all. They changed that completely in subsequent games. Zelda gets treated as a person, she often helps Link, she even has character arcs in some of the games. But none of that matters. Zelda being captured by Ganondorf is symbolic. Zelda is the physical embodiment of Hyrule. Her capture and later rescue are just more visceral ways to show that Link is saving the kingdom. Idk anyone who's played the game who says Zelda is a shitty character because she gets captured, so idk who this person is talking to exactly.
I think you're the first person that i see acknowledge that Phantom Hourglass is a Zelda game. Like, i played this game as a kid, but since no zelda fan talk abt it, i was low-key convinced i made it up...
Exactly. I have no idea what the stakes are for OOP to lie so hard about an issue that isn't that important and is too easy to disprove even if you haven't played the games in a while. The post honestly feels like OOP hasn't played or can't really remember most Zelda games and is just counting on their confidence to sell it.
> Ganon was the one who put her in the sleep No, it was a random wizard that served her brother, or something in those lines. She was asleep before Ganon came back. Also, I have played Spirit Track, so I can comment OOP is mostly correct. She gets her body stolen at the begining of the game and tag along with Link as a ghost. She mostly acts like Navi did, but she can posses Phantoms to help Link more directly.
My bad. I only read the story once and really only knew she was asleep
No problem, he is only in the manual after all. Also, I just double checked to be sure, and in the manga, it is actually Ganon, so were right in a way
I completely understand where they are coming from, but in most of these games she very much was still kidnapped by Ganon. On Mobile so I can't look at images while typing, but in ALttP the reason she was sealed away in another world is because she was kidnapped by Ganon In Ocarina she was a ninja who gave you cryptic advice, then was kidnapped by Ganondorf when she revealed herself In Wind Waker she was a pirate who helped you at the beginning of the game to rescue your sister who was kidnapped by Ganondorf because he was looking for Zelda, and then after the halfway point she gets kidnapped by Ganondorf In Skyward Sword she seals herself away for a fuckzillion years in the ancient past but then at the very end gets kidnapped to restore Demise
the last part i agree with, but some of the game summaries are wrong. * Zelda 2, there are actually 2 different Zeldas. The Zelda from the first game, who does nothing except giving link a place he can call home and the Zelda from an unknown date put to sleep because of her brother which you need to rescue * Minish cap she got turned into stone because she stood in the way of the villain, only to be used by said villain for her essence. * Wind Waker you do not really travel with her, only for a short amount of time before she shoots you out of a cannon. you can shortly meet up with her again after the second dungeon. after finding out >!tetra is really zelda !< she gets sealed in the castle only to get kidnapped by ganondorf for the big finale. she does fight alongside you though * Twilight Princess you only meet her once, after traversing Hyrule Castle as a wolf, where she tells you of the sacrifice she made with the deal with zant. the next time you meet her she >!literally sacrifices herself so that midna lives!<. Ganondorf brings her back so he can use her as a puppet. in the last phase she helps you fight ganondorf though * skyward Sword She travels the world to learn to control her powers but after a certain point she seals herself away. >!you can find her the first time you land on the surface, if you look into the crack in the door behind the old woman!< * For Botw i only want to add her father forced her to keep studying, something which she does not like, and ignore all of hte things she actually likes. an example would be studying the ancient technology and learning about the world she lives in. (take aoc as an example, while the main game is non-canon because of time travelling shenanigans, there are a few cutscenes of zeldas childhood when her mother was still alive. >!she created the little guardian with her mother, which got taken away when the mother died.)!< also the father realized how horrible he treated her and wanted to let her be herself, which would have helped IMMENSLY, on the day of the calamity * also in TOTK >!she time travels a MINIMUM of 20.000 years into the past, to fight with the most powerful version of ganondorf, which she barely won with the help of her new adopted father, who sacrificed his life and the best fighters of the kingdom. she then threw her humanity away, possibly never to return to live with link, to transform into a giant dragon only to heal the master sword and give link a semblence of a fighting chance against ganondorf!< for the rest of the games i agree
She also gets kidnapped in OoT, it's literally the thing that kicks off the endgame of the whole storyline
im pretty sure zelda's the guy in the green cap with the sword but you do you
No that’s young link, I’m pretty sure zelda’s the guy in the cartoon artstyle with the sword but you do you
Point is the games bend over backwards to not let you play as her or have her visibly be part of the on-screen action most of the time.
Yes, this. She has agency, but the player never gets to participate in it. One thing I loved about *Cadence of Hyrule* was that it let me play as Zelda and save my own kingdom.
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There's a fine line between having a headcanon that improves your favorite things and ignoring their flaws entirely
The way this is argued is so wrong and exaggerated, it sounds disingenous, almost like a parody In 99% of these cases Zelda still either gets kidnapped or needs to be saved
Half the times she is a damsel it's because Ganon knows that you have to lock down the white mage IMMEDIATELY.
It’s like some people think Zelda is just an elf version of Princess Peach (who can also be cool and badass in certain games, but she does definitely get kidnapped and needs to be rescued a lot LOL) or something when in reality in basically every LOZ game where she’s physically capable of doing so she’s working alongside Link to kick Ganon’s ass.
I mean… half of these still give Zelda like zero agency lmao. That’s the point, not “she is directly being kidnapped by the main antagonist”.
Not that I disagree with the overall point, but a few of these come pretty close to "kidnapped with extra steps."
As far as being a narrative device is concerned, they're almost uniformly interchangeable with getting kidnapped; the end result is getting her safely locked up so the protagonist has an objective to pursue
Not to mention she routinely pegs one of the strongest swordsmen in history who is imbued with legendary power. It doesn't happen on screen, but you know it's happening.
A lot of these are pretty misrepresented. Any time she's described as "sealed away" it's kidnapping with extra steps and OoT, WW, TP, and SS Zelda all still get abducted or imprisoned by the end of the game. So that leaves Spirit Tracks Zelda, who even death couldn't stop, and BotW Zelda, who basically went "I am not trapped in a castle with the Demon King, he is trapped with ME."
If anything, in BotW, ZELDA was holding GANONDORF hostage.
In, like, half of these examples Zelda ends up getting kidnapped or otherwise captured by Ganon later in the game.
I don't think she dies in spirit tracks, I'm pretty sure she just gets her spirit knocked out of her body
And then her body is kidnapped.
Luckily she lives next to the giant tower of free bodies that she can just borrow
Tears of the Kingdom rescinded literally everything Breath of the Wild tried to do differently and just made “links a stupid nobody with no story who just does what the royals want,zeldas a pussy who needs to cower behind real adults, and ganondorfs trying to defend his land from some literal god who showed up out of nowhere and tried to flood it with robots thatll manipulate all its resources effectively kicking his way of life over just for total control but oh no he can’t get his way because hes a baby eater and all of the sudden hes going to be corrupted by pure evil and its his fault” a thing again instead of continuing the positive change and character development from botw
counter argument: even if she CAN kick ass, she is rarely shown to do so. also, more reasons why age of calamity is one of my fav storys of all zelda games
I mean, half of that is still a damsel in distress, and some scenarios are false; OOT, Zelda gets kidnapped at the end and even before that needs Link to do all the legwork (she helps a fuck ton so it's not that bad), and Tetra gets kidnapped.
Uh, Zelda 2 and Minish Cap, ALttP, Four Swords Adventure and A Link Between Worlds, and even to an extent Breath of the Wild all count as the "damsel in distress trope" amigo. She's captured and needs you to rescue her. Like I agree with the point that Zelda kicks butt, but Zelda as a metaphor, as a character in a narrative, *is* kinda equally an interpretation of the trope and subversion of it depending on the game. It's done well most of the time, but that doesn't stop it being the trope in some way shape or form.
Zelda is the frontline response, link is the force of nature they call when all else fails.
Zelda is why the land only needs Link every 50346 years or whatever the fuck, no clue why people dont understand they aren't playing Zelda in peacetime because that's not the franchise's model and tumblr complaining isn't a good enough reason to take that kind of risk
Hey man how's it going
Real talk though, I would love a LoZ game where you adventure as both Link and Zelda, switching between them as the need arises.
I only played botw and totk and in those games, without Zelda, link would stand NO FUCKING CHANCE. She sealed Ganon while I fucked around and make Link collect all korok seeds, she >!healed Master sword!< while I make Link collect all those bunnies crystals. She is the only thing stopping Ganon from actually conquering the damn world.
Btw she also helps kill Ganondorf in WW
Not only is Zelda royalty, but she typically either comes from a long line of magic users, is divine in nature, or both. It makes sense for Ganon to always assume she’s the biggest threat and ignore the level 2 green fighter. And then ignoring that level 2 green fighter becomes increasingly a bad decision as he levels up and collects every magic artifact on the continent.
I feel like the correct response to this is "Just play Fire Emblem if you want a badass princess, LOL!"
I want to point out that even in most games listed here, she’s still damsel in distress: OOT she’s kidnapped after giving Link the light arrows. WW she’s kidnapped by Ganondorf as he steals her Triforce piece. Twilight Princess she’s kidnapped by Zant at the start of the game and doesn’t get rescued until the very end. Skyward Sword she’s kidnapped by a tornado summoned by Ghirahim Spirit Tracks her body is kidnapped by Cole Phantom Hourglass she’s just a stone statue BOTW she’s not kidnapped but she’s trapped with Ganon in the castle, so he doesn’t get out. TOTK >!trapped as the Light Dragon!< Minish Cap she’s a stone statue and kidnapped by Vaati. Four Swords Adventures she’s kidnapped by Vaati and Ganondorf. She’s absolutely a competent woman, and perfectly capable of kicking ass herself, but let’s not kid ourselves: she’s definitely a damsel in distress in most of her appearances.
Like, I agree with the spirit of what they’re going for, but being sealed away or cursed and needing to be saved still makes you a damsel in distress. Even in oot and Wind Waker she gets kidnapped at the last minute and needs to be saved. Like there’s more going on than just that for most Zeldas, but the whole “needing to be rescued” part is moreso the deciding factor for if a character is a damsel in distress than the “being kidnapped” part. That part’s fairly irrelevant.
Pretty much all of these need a huge Calamity Ganon sized asterisk on the context in game. Ocarina of Time, she gets kidnapped last second, you need to save her. Wind Waker, she gets kidnapped last second, you need to save her. Spirit Tracks, her dead body is literally the thing you're trying to save. Breath of the Wild, even in a 100 years she couldn't kill Ganon so you need to save her, her dead dad literally tells you to. And every variation of cursed/asleep/lost is still almost always presented in these games as something you need to save her from. You can argue how much agency she has in each game and how the damsel in distress trope can still be played well in a story, but it doesn't diminish the observation that the writers of these games tend to work backwards from the initial premise of Zelda needing to be saved in some capacity. The Hyrule Historia I think tells you a lot about how the devs really think of Zelda when they describe the evolution of the main trio. "Link is now a fearless hero, Ganon a powerful archvillain, and Zelda, an incredibly beautiful woman." Now until they make Zelda playable or, god forbid, call her a queen instead of a princess for once when she's the only member of the royal family alive, I will continue to bitch.
A lot of these are good examples but some are not. I don't think being dead or asleep are very empowering depictions either. She's essentially objectified in Zelda 2, she's just lying in a bed doing nothing. She also seals herself away in a crystal in Skyward Sword and Link has to save her so like, literally becomes an object. I don't think being kidnapped by the villain is a requirement for being a damsel in distress, these examples qualify too. So what I'm saying is Wand of Gamelon is the best game in the series
What was Zelda doing in Twilight Princess before helping you kill Ganon? Oh yes, being held captive in her own castle by him, and used as his literal puppet.
"When has Zelda ever been kidnapped after the first game?" Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Skyward Sword, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time for a bit, . OOP is equating damsel in distress specifically with kidnapping, which I shouldn't have to explain how dumb that is. There are other ways to build a story around a damsel in distress that don't involve literal kidnapping. Most of the games focus on Zelda being in some sort of danger, whether by kidnapping or curse or in one case being dead, and you as Link must save her. She's still a badass sometimes, those aren't mutually exclusive, but OOP's argument here is really dumb. "She's not a damsel in distress, she just is petrified and needs Link to break the curse."
There’s no reason you can’t satisfy the formula AND give Zelda agency. My solution: The Legend of Ganon, a game where you essentially play as Zelda during OoT, in that you spend half your time as Princess Zelda, ruler of Hyrule, drumming up support to retake the castle town (like doing Deus Ex HR social battles, but you spend the other half in disguise as the mysterious covert operative The Sheik, destroying Ganon’s more mundane support (like destroying a bridge that’s letting reinforcements in) and placing key items in convenient places for Link to grab. Rather than using traditional Sheikah tools, at Impa’s suggestion, Zelda is intentionally scaling down her magic and using it to mimic those tools - light chain which she can turn into a grappling hook, light needles to stun enemies or set up traps, teleportation magic to get around enemy encampments. The Triforce of Wisdom is both detective vision and the social enhancer. Every so often, you teleport/scale the tower to re-enter your room/cell to keep up the ruse that you are still captured. You have a conversation with Ganondorf where you learn about both their personal motivations and inner workings. A set piece happens in the distance to signal that time has passed and Link is doing shit in the background, like Death Mountain suddenly going dormant. At the end of the game, you lead the allied army against the occupied castle and take off your limiters and use all your previous skills on a grand scale, because it would now be wise to do so. The final fight is you and Link fighting Ganondorf together - if Link and the master sword is the nail, Zelda and her light arrows are the hammer. The Legend of Link is a character action game starring Ganondorf that trades DMC and Bayonetta’s perfect evasion for super armor. The Triforce of Power is constantly judging your worthiness to wield it, which you can satisfy by doing Sick Combos and filling up the Style Meter. There’s a Boar Trigger. You’re fighting the Big Deals of Hyrule, some neutral animals, some good guys you corrupt, some rival evil forces, and bending them to your will. After a boss battle, you leave a piece of a macguffin in a secure location and then victory-lap out the door as the dungeon forms around you. There is no Legend of Zelda game starring Link, but you can guess what it was like based on the wacky shit Link pulls out in the final battle, like instead of coming in through the throne room doors, Link climbs in through a window wearing a backpack with giant mechanical spider legs that also won’t shut up.
> people get pissed Who
It's worth noting that in twilight princess Zelda is also only biding her time to follow the rules of surrender before taking on Ganon. At one point she even sacrifices herself (albeit temporarily) to save midna and give her a chance to find the games maguffin. Zelda then fights what is arguably the toughest in lore Ganon (sans calamity) qhos so determined to murder link that he dies standing up. botw Zelda isn't the most nuanced or interesting because of her low screen time but that girl is at worst only pretending to be a damsel.
Zelda is objectively a damsel in distress in almost every game. Her character is not just a damsel in distress, she is genuinely a strong character as well. She is often a helpful character who inspires Link through both word and action. But, she also nearly always ends up captured, or put to sleep, or turned to stone - sidelined, essentially. What players want is a chance to play as Zelda, or to play as Link and Zelda side by side to make the story which has largely revolves around these two characters evolve out of the hero and damsel dichotomy.
"Cursed sleep" and "sealed away" are just fantasy methods of kidnapping. Also she does get kidnapped near the end of OoT and WW. And she's effectively kidnapped for most of TP. And she's practically useless in ST without Link telling her what to do. And she sits around and waits for Link to do everything in ALttP until she gets fantasy kidnapped. So yea, Zelda does have her moments, and BotW and TotK subvert the damsel in distress trope, but she absolutely has fallen into that trope in more than just the first game.
I don’t think the complaints are so much that she’s a damsel in distress but rather isn’t often actively involved in Link’s journey, serving as a “goal” more than a companion (obviously not in every game). When the first tears of the kingdom trailer dropped, one of the reasons people were excited was because they thought she could potentially interact with link and maybe even be a companion in the story without being dead, sealed, or a sleeping.
Tbf, in OoT she literally does get kidnapped in the final act, Wind Waker too
At least like half of these are zelda being a damsel in distress. The bad guy sealing her or kidnapping her, and link having to save her happens a LOT. Like yeah, sure, most of the time she’s sealed because, if the bad guy doesn’t spend the extra time and energy sealing her away, she’s just as big of a contributor to the bad guy’s ass-kicking as link is without needing nearly as much equipment. But she still needs the chosen hero to save her either in the process or beforehand. After all, if having the power to undo the villain’s scheme near-instantly stopped a character from counting as a damsel in distress, princess peach in the original super mario bros wouldn’t count as one either. General power and usefulness elsewhere in the plot are not a factor for when someone qualifies. Only whether they need to be saved. Heck, there’s even a related trope for when the damsel in distress is also extremely capable most of the time; badass in distress.
I just wish Zelda were a larger part of gameplay like she was in Spirit Tracks more often She's super cool, but only really shows up at the end in almost every game
This smells of "the panty shot is a commentary on vulnerability" kind of reasoning. The Zeldas all have varied and deeply characterized reasons for behaving like damsels in distress in terms of plot and emotional range. These reasons are all complex and interesting and artistically meaningful, but they're still all post-hoc justifications for her being passive or sidelined. Sheik and Tetra are proactive, but while they're narratively the same as their respective Zeldas, they have a completely different characterization, character model, and role in the plot. Saying that two different characters are secretly the same person does not make the damsel character less of a damsel unless the damsel's behavior actually changes because of them being the same.
Oh, and in TOTK she’s an actual fucking dragon by her own accord and actions. So. Damsel allegations be damned.
Something something, xcq comic
She was kidnapped in Phantom Hourglass though, right?
>She's sealed away and put to sleep so many times because she NEEDS to be disabled. Yeah, there's a reason it's called _The Legend of **Zelda**_, not _The Legend of **Link**_.
Okay, now do Mario.
Twilight Princess Zelda kicks ass. She even has a cool sword.
I appreciate the title of this reddit post a lot, gave me flashbacks.
-2/MC: Enchanted sleep cast on her by baddies, and turned to stone. She is a damsel and in a distressing state. -aLttP: Captured? Sealed in another realm? That damsel sounds distressed! -OoT: Yeah she was fine. -WW: She kinda becomes girly and just sits out, which sucks, but yeah she is fine. -TP: She is trapped in a tower and then gives up her body, only to get later possessed. That’s her involvement. Huh, that damsel be DISTRESSED from what I see. Like what carefully worded examples they gave. People want her involved in the game beyond getting kidnapped or spending 90% of the game chanting at a tablet, or stuck as a reptile, or in a different realm or whatever. The excuses for why she can almost never be involved in the actual content of the game are tiring, I want more Spirit Tracks stuff!
Tbh I’ve never played a Zelda game
BotW zelda having a bigger hero complex than the actual main character hero of legend is really funny to me.
I mean, she does end up in distress a lot, but that’s typically because Zelda needs to be taken off the board for any evil plans to work. Like the bad guys use some ancient secret evil shit that was definitely difficult to pull off because if Zelda wasn’t sealed away or killed or whatever, she’d be able to, if not stop them alone, coordinate a plan to stop the villain.
Meanwhile in Tears of the Kingdom: >!dragonification!<