My favorite video game series of all time is Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda” series, a series of games that consists of puzzle-solving, combat, and adventure. While I usually have just played the games in the series mindlessly, just enjoying how much fun they are, thinking of what to write for this blog post immediately made me think of the gender roles in Zelda, and how complex they are. One common joke about the series is that people think the main character, Link, is named “Zelda” because that is what the series is called. Link’s appearance is not stereotypically “male,” as he has many feminine physical features and longer hair, so that also contributes to the common misconception that Link’s name would be “Zelda,” the name of the series. While giving Zelda’s name the power of being the title, as the story is ultimately about her “Legend,” the story ultimately is about Link being that hero saving the helpless princess, who is kidnapped by an evil male character named Ganon. Her name is in the title, but her “Legend” involves her being saved by the male character, Link in every game in the series. There is multiple games in the series, therefore there is multiple takes on the same basic story, so there are times in different games in the series where Zelda is seen as the “protector of Hyrule” (where the games take place), and is seen having special abilities and powers that represent her female strength, Still, no matter what, it is ultimately still up to Link, a white male, to save Hyrule and the Princess, who could not fully save it or her herself. Link is even dubbed the “Hero of Hyrule.”
While the basic plot goes along with the stereotype of the “damsel in distress,” the game still does include a lot of powerful women, including Zelda in a lot of cases, so it is not completely discrediting women, but it of course could always do better. A lot of the time the “Sages” who assist Link throughout the game are powerful females, there even being an entire village in the Zelda universe usually ran by powerful women called Gerudo. Interestingly enough, while the Gerudo is a race primarily made up of women, the evil boss Ganon was born the only male in an all-female village, which only happens every hundred years and means he was born to be their destined King. This gave him power over these women, and he used this to ultimately become evil and start his world domination that involved kidnapping Zelda, giving Link a reason to save her. Even in what is supposed to be a village ran by women, once a man is introduced, that power is handed over to him, feeding right back into the “helpless women” stereotype. While I still of course love the games and will forever play them over and over again, it would be really interesting to see if they would ever make Link’s character a female in future installments, which is common hope from some fans hoping to one day see a female hero save Hyrule.