Apologies to just burst in here with a mega-post, but the whole female Link / female protagonist for mainline Zelda thing has been on my mind for a while now. I would've probably eventually made a thread about it, but I know exactly how that is going to turn out and I just … do not have the energy for that. So I'll just put it here as there was some discussion about it earlier.
It turned out quite rant-y, so apologies in advance for that. .x.
This post is not directed at anyone here in specific.
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Whenever someone says 'Well, then why not change Mario to be a girl? Or Lara Croft to be a man?' in a discussion about a female protagonist in The Legend of Zelda, I roll my eyes because those types of questions so completely and utterly miss the point. Nobody is asking for Mario to be a girl. Nobody is asking for Samus or Lara Croft to be a man. The Legend of Zelda comes up in these discussions about female protagonists because it has a specific history.
Part of it is statements like these from Aonuma;
"When a player is playing a Zelda game, my desire is for the player to truly become Link — that's why we named him Link, so the player is linked to the game and to the experience. Of course, the player can always change Link's name to their own name to further that notion should they want."
"The most important thing about the Zelda series is that the player becomes Link. One of the challenges with full voice is that if we're trying to convey the player's emotion through Link, but you hear Link talking in somebody else's voice, that creates a disconnect between you and the role that you're taking on."
Link, to many players, is an avatar. The above statements by Aonuma reinforce that belief. Link does not speak, because Link should be you - therefore Link cannot have an own voice. You can change Link's name, because Link should be you - therefore Link cannot have an own name. You may disagree with this interpretation of Link as an avatar and say that they are moving away from the idea of 'Link as an avatar' - something which you can probably also find Aonuma quotes in support for -, but that does not erase these previous statements and the expectations or interpretations some have built on them.
It's stories like a father
hacking The Wind Waker for his daughter so that it refers to main character as female. Or another parent
replacing all references to Link as male in A Link to the Past with gender-neutral language so that their daughter can enjoy the game later in her life without the hard-coded male gender aspect for the protagonist. People modding Zelda to, you know,
actually star Zelda.
It's how the franchise has a built-in excuse if it would ever want to change the gender of the main character; these are all different Links, different incarnations, re-incarnations. A new incarnation could just happen to turn out female, and basically zero explanation would be required for that as that explanation is essentially already built into the lore.
Then there's the fact that the series is literally named after a female character - perhaps some feel she deserves the spotlight for once?
The desire for a female protagonist in a Zelda game is genuine - it didn't spring out of nowhere.
When Aonuma said this in a 2014 Kotaku interview;
"The main character isn't actually Link—it's the player. Of course we have to have a main character in the story, so Link is that main character. But I don't want him to be like a superhero. I want him to represent any player, have that possibility. So that's why I don't really know if we need or want to define it so clearly.
So there are actually many female characters you can play as in Hyrule Warriors. We've introduced Midna, we've introduced Princess Zelda, and Impa as well. So if that connection needs to be there—I'm not saying that it does—let's see what happens with Hyrule Warriors, if as a result of there being more female protagonists, more women pick up the game, I'm all for it, so I've decided to see what happens with this title."
You can probably understand why some people got excited.
So when he then followed that up in 2016 with;
"You know there's the idea of the Triforce in the Zelda games we make," he told Kotaku. "The Triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female. If we made Link a female we thought that would mess with the balance of the Triforce. That's why we decided not to do it."
"...if we have princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do? Taking into account that, and also the idea of the balance of the Triforce, we thought it best to come back to this [original] makeup."
You can probably understand why those people were
very disappointed.
I personally found Aonuma's 2016 statements
very lacking. They felt like an evasion. An evasion of responsibility through attributing his creative decision to an element of the lore that he then does not further explain. Did he not also create that element of the lore? And why is that element so important? It seems like a completely arbitrary 'balance' - one I never consciously noticed or identified as crucial to the franchise because the concept of it seems entirely arbitrary and unimportant to the overall games. How does having a female protagonist 'upset' that 'balance' anyway?
Those statements came off to me as Aonuma claiming that he does not have the power to do something, because something he supposedly cannot control would be 'messed with'. Yet that thing that would be 'messed with' is something of his own creation too. Something he can entirely control. As the author, he controls everything. He can change things to suit his every need. And he has. Nintendo has.
Take the idea of a Zelda timeline for example. Miyamoto gave a general order to put the games in after a few were out, yet after that there was nothing for a while. Aonuma indicated a split timeline with comments he made about Twilight Princess, but at the same time made no commitment to a complete interlinked timeline involving all games. Certain games were clearly linked in story or lore, but others were not. Nintendo denied a timeline existed at all. Then in 2011, both the Hyrule Historia and Skyward Sword were released - Hyrule Historia containing an 'official' timeline including all games, Skyward Sword seeming like an attempt to create an origin for the franchise and an effort to tie key elements of the franchise to this one origin point. The 'official' timeline did not line up with the Miyamoto order, and introduced an unanticipated third timeline to the split. Lore was changed or added to make some of the connections work.
Then just recently, Aonuma backed off again - claiming that the timeline is not something that concerns him, that it is something that isn't considered when creating a Zelda game, that he likes to leave it 'up to the imagination' of others.
The timeline, what it looks like, whether it exists, whether it is even important or relevant - those are all things that changed over time to suit the needs of Nintendo / Aonuma. Things
they changed to suit their needs or views. Because they are the author, and thus they control everything.
Breath of the Wild arguably changed
what a Zelda game is through a different gameplay focus and the introduction of new systems and a more open world than ever before. In Twilight Princess, Link was a wolf with an alternate-dimension side-kick. In The Minish Cap, Link had a talking hat that allowed him to shrink. In the Wind Waker, Link had a talking lion boat and Zelda was a kick-ass pirate with a different name for a while. In Spirit Tracks, Zelda was a ghost-sidekick whom you could have possess suits of armor and Link was a train driver. Link's Awakening didn't have Zelda. Majora's Mask barely had Zelda. The Oracle games did not have Zelda unless you linked them. Ganon / Ganondorf is not present in some eight games in the series. Vaati had nothing to do with the Triforce. Breath of the Wild has a horse motorcycle. One of the concepts for Breath of the Wild had an alien invasion as part of the story.
New lore can always be added. Old lore can always be retconned, otherwise amended, or expanded upon. As the author, Aonuma holds the power to change anything he wants, whenever he wants, for whatever reason,
and he has done so in the past because that is inherent to being an author.
This idea that Aonuma cannot think of anything for Link to do if Link is not the main character, this idea that Aonuma cannot think of any way to circumvent an entirely fictional concept that he himself created, this idea that Aonuma is somehow unable to think of a way to support a female protagonist - that is something I find almost insulting in the context of all the above. He can change whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and for whatever reason. That he claims that he cannot when talking about a female protagonist is something I take issue with, because it means that he is either creatively incompetent in this specific space, or not being honest with us about why he made the decision.
But I'm happy to provide him with some ideas!
Have Zelda be the protagonist with Link being the 'dude in distress'. Could just play that straight, or you could put a twist on it. Like; a young new Zelda is being trained by an older, more experienced Link. Due to his experience and wisdom, the Triforce of Wisdom passes on to that older Link - losing the Triforce of Courage in the process. Then Link is the one who gets in trouble, and the younger Zelda takes it upon herself to fix everything - ending with the Triforce of Courage passing down to her for her display of courage. If you feel that that messes with the 'balance' too much, you can always just say that it was a 'quirk of fate' - that the Triforce acted outside its usual limits due to unforeseen circumstances. You don't even need to
explicitly say that; hinting at it would be more than enough.
Have Zelda and Link both be protagonists (with us either getting a choice at the start a la Dishonored 2, or switch between them over the course of the story a la GTAV), taking on the big bad together. This would allow for both to be fully formed characters and to perhaps explore their relationship and individual characters more than we have in the past.
Just have Zelda be the protagonist with no Link in sight - there are already periods in the lore where there is no Link, and there are games that barely reference Zelda, so this shouldn't be an issue, right?
Maybe have a new incarnation of Link be female instead - or potentially give us that choice at the start. Because… well, I don't think you even have to provide a specific additional lore reason for that to work.
If we go further on the 'Link as an avatar' route, maybe just have the player be able to select the pronouns they are referred by. I know that plenty of people would be happy with even just that.
Maybe just have the protagonist be a new female character because … well, just because. Again, just call it 'a quirk in the Triforce' if you really feel that it needs to be explained through lore. Perhaps the big bad is killing or imprisoning all young Hylian boys as a precaution, and this causes a female character to take action - a show of courage that the Triforce of Courage then responds to. Heck, doesn't even need to be a human / 'Hylian' character at that point - open it up to Zora and Nabooru and whatever else you feel fits.
I could go on, but this post is getting pretty long and I should stop at some point.
There are just so many cool and interesting things they could do with a female protagonist in this franchise. I wish more people would see it that way instead of dismissing it outright. I wish Aonuma would see it that way.
