Yeah, and there have been Mario games where you played as Peach, and the most recent exploration of the Half Life universe has been confined to Portal & Portal 2, where you play as Chell. For that matter, it would have been pretty trivial to design (say) Wind Waker such that, for the second quest, you play as Aryll rescuing Link. (Not trivial to implement, but trivial to design.)
That’s the big issue, I think: “Link” is more of a concept or a calling than a character. Link is literally your connection as the player to the game world. The green tunic is more characteristic than Link’s gender.
Plus, I mean. Wouldn’t it be cool if “the Legend of Zelda” wasn’t just about some girl that had to be rescued? Wouldn’t it be cool if it was about some girl going on an adventure?
“But then what do we have Link do?!” Man, I dunno. Hang out in a crystal prison at the end of the final dungeon, how 'bout? You can even have the obvious story about how Ganon’s descendant knows young dudes in green tunics are his family’s historical undoing, so bam, have his lackies abduct seven young guys just to prevent his plans from going off the rails for once, and Zelda has her quest. It’d be so easy, and yet they seem just flummoxed.
Plus there’s also fact in Canon link is not one person but a series ofdifferent ppl over generations, a lot easier to justify than Mario suddenly becoming Maria
how does any of this change if you make 1% effort to add fem character model option and call it a day[quote=“Ni_Go_Zero_Ichi, post:23, topic:1983”]
It would definitely be less weird to make a Zelda game where you can play as Zelda than one with a genderswapped Link,
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i don’t see how at all
you’d have to go through way more L.O.R.E. (to the extent there is any) gymnastics to make this work than just to stop pretending link is anything besides an avatar and lean on inclusivity
We already won on the gay Disney characters - the cops from Gravity Falls.
Bond is a character to which masculinity and to some extent misogyny is essential. A woman as Bond would be an opportunity to shed the worst aspects of the character as written by Fleming. Craig’s bond starting with Casino Royale doomed its gender politics from the start.
Link is… what? Wide eyed wonderment incarnate? A scowling Legolas? No reason not to if it makes some folks happy.
yeah but this only really works because there is enough White Male out there that we can be concerned about nuance and gradients of white male. everyone else is still waiting around to be thrown even the broadest table scraps of representation[quote=“Ni_Go_Zero_Ichi, post:33, topic:1983”]
Why not scrap “Link” entirely for a bottom-up character creation tool? That blond hair and those blue eyes exclude somebody.
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there is a question of whether or not those qualities are inherently a male experience, yes; zelda sure does seem to be especially popular with women and girls!
I could see that working for a story like The Stick of Truth where the “boyhood” experience is about being a violent boor, but Zelda’s fantasy. It can be about anyone on that journey. That its creator is from a society that has particularly regressive gender norms is not a reason to code the childhood represented in the game as male.
just wanted to say this is a great idea for a starting premise.
i’d love a Zelda game actually starring Zelda, i hope that maybe you could theoretically select between them in this game since they explained that this game’s “lore” will be more vauge and nonexistent than before. but probably not.