Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by FrankenGraphics »

So, just because there’s one other layer (the symbolism of the elements), and that her wand is magic with the ability to spellbind, it automatically makes the other layer invalid? I honestly don’t think so.

It adds some nuance (which of i’m guilty of reducing), that’s all.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Sumez »

I try to distance myself from the horribly aggressive feminist movement that's been growing other the last few years, because I feel exactly like Pokum, that it's become extremely loud and so obsessed with attacking everything that anyone standing outside of it will have a hard time taking it seriously.

And that's sort of sad, because there is an issue, and it needs focus. I just don't feel like the correct way to approach it is to antagonize people who don't understand it. I try to remain neutral so I can recognize an issue when there is one, instead of actively looking for one. It tends to get me enemies in both camps, but I really value objectivity in a sensitive matter such as this.

On the subject of "Super Princess Peach", I don't feel like there's a reason to demonize it for doing anything horrible. The developers didn't mean anything bad with it, and I don't feel that the game itself could possibly cause any harm to anyone, directly or indirectly - it's merely the cause of a society that already has some odd priorities. But I think you should still be able to recognise that the concept is ridiculously stupid and unfair towards her character, without making too much of a fuss about it. :)
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Yeah, just to be perfectly clear, i don’t think anyone intentionally villanously aimed for what i identified as a misogynist expression while playing. It does’t aim to represent peach caricature-like. It’s a game about expressing emotions (like i also said). It’s just that against the issue-ridden backdrop of womens’ history (which is also more or less visible depending on if you have experience of life as a woman or not and what that entails) it comes off as something entirely else.

Any backdrop is always going to embed itself into a piece of work everytime someone decodes it, and i think that’s a thing designers ought to at least discuss.

It was never my purpose to lash out at the games'/its designers’ intentions, merely to express how the game felt like and why social structure and history plays a part in that.

Edit:
Given that gender has become one of the most politically loaded questions of today (a bit like it was ~100 years ago, too), it might not have been the best start to joke about the a fictional design meeting like i did. I kind of regret that.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Pokun »

OK so it sounds like we are on the same page in the end. Caricatures and stereotypical depictions like hysteria is a common thing in Mario games and similar media, but everyone don't always have to like them all.
Espozo wrote:
Pokun wrote:has my homeland really fallen that far into the extremist feminist propaganda over the past few years?
I'm not sure finding tear geysers distasteful makes you a feminazi. :|
Just to be clear, I didn't mean to say that anyone on the forum is an extremist, I just meant that some recent local political trends may have swayed some opinions in this thread. I might have been too quick to judge though.

strat wrote:
And although all the Zeldas are of the same royal blood line, Link is usually unrelated to other Links. One exception may be the ALttP Link who is, together with his uncle, the last descendants of the knights of Hyrule who fought Ganon.
Since Skyward Sword we know...
Yeah without spoiling anything we can say that there is talk about the spirit of the hero that is forced to fight evil many many times. If this means that all Links are the reincarnation of the same spirit or not is hard to tell, and it also gets confusing if you consider Wolf Link being taught by the spirit of the Hero of Time, despite they are both being the same spirit of the hero if that is true.

Another thing I always thought was funny is that the descendants of the seven sages are all humanoid while the original sages included Goron and Zora. I guess it's possible that someone in their bloodlines may have married Hylians or other humanoids at some point though.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Sumez »

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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by tepples »

FrankenGraphics wrote:Princess Peach is a princess in a kingdom, so why didn't it appear as obvious for the designers to get inspired by the tasks of royal administration? For instance, there's a kingdom to govern, a royal family to represent, subjects to visit and help and keep safe.
Because that kind of sim is for Koei.
Alp wrote:You're reading into it too much, please go read up on the five elements, before making such ridiculous claims.
Which five elements?
  • Earth, fire, wind, water, heart? (GO PLANET!)
  • Earth, fire, wind, water, Leeloo Boron Dallas? (Mool-tee-pass!)
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by FrankenGraphics »

The duties and adventures of a young royal could for sure be expressed in a lot of forms, action platformer, puzzle platformer, rpg-lite, anything in between. A sim sounds for the worse to me? Probably a personal preference though.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by GradualGames »

I just like to think of the Zelda series as being similar stories that occur in parallel universes, or reincarnation in the same universe after eons have passed. I've never understood why anybody wants to try to make sense of it all with a timeline or what not. Parallel universes are way cooler than logic.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by DRW »

GradualGames wrote:I just like to think of the Zelda series as being similar stories that occur in parallel universes
In this case, Nintendo tends to disagree with you.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Sumez »

That IS pretty much the basis for all the Zelda games though. They are just separate stories that tend to draw on elements from eachother.
Nintendo don't care about the timeline. They just saw a trend, and released it to pretend they care.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by DRW »

Sumez wrote:Nintendo don't care about the timeline. They just saw a trend, and released it to pretend they care.
That's an unproven statement. There has been a continuity right from the start:

"Zelda II" is a direct sequel to "Zelda I" anyway.

"A Link to the Past" might look like just an alternate universe or retelling of the original game, but the box makes it clear that it's a prequel to the NES games:
Venture back to Hyrule and an age of magic and heroes. The predecessors of Link and Zelda face monsters on the march when a menacing magician takes over the kingdom.
"Link's Awakening" is a sequel to ALttP.

And when "Ocarina of Time" came out, they emphasized that this is the first game in the series. So, again, not just an alternate take on the original NES and SNES games.

The "Zelda" games were always intended to be an ongoing series. It was never about retelling or updating the same story, like with the movies "Spider Man", "The Amazing Spider Man" and "Spider Man - Homecoming". Or like Grimm's "Snow White" and Disney's "Snow White".

It was always a connected series, only playing centuries apart, but the same universe and continuity. Just like "The Silmarillion", "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Pokun »

Possibly, although it may be possible that there where disagreements within Nintendo during development of AlttP. But yes after that it's clear that there's a continuity: Ocarina was definitely designed after the backstory written in AlttP's manual, Link's Awakening is a direct sequel to AlttP and Oracle games are designed to take place in between ALttP and LA and so on. On the other hand I don't think Nintendo cares too much about consistency with certain things. For example they like to redesign the map with no explanation as why Hyrule's geography changes so much. Of course it wouldn't feel like a new game if they had used the same exact map in all games since Zelda 1. The world has to be redesigned for the same reason that levels in Mario games have to be new in every game despite them taking place in the same world.
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by strat »

strat wrote:
And although all the Zeldas are of the same royal blood line, Link is usually unrelated to other Links. One exception may be the ALttP Link who is, together with his uncle, the last descendants of the knights of Hyrule who fought Ganon.
Since Skyward Sword we know...
I edited that post to remove the spoiler (In case someone here is vaguely interested in playing Skyward Sword but somehow never got to it).
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Pokun wrote:On the other hand I don't think Nintendo cares too much about consistency with certain things.
Well, inexplicably redesigning Hyrule doesn't annoy me as much as ignoring previously established rules. It's a stretch, but there could be reasons why Hyrule or the Mushroom Kingdom or Donkey Kong Island appear different in different games other than continuity errors.

https://splatoonus.tumblr.com/post/1065 ... ve-a-total

...except now they don't. :|

https://splatoonus.tumblr.com/post/1677 ... ted_post=1
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Re: Why is there no set standard for what Zelda looks like?

Post by Pokun »

I wouldn't say that the inconsistency in Hyrules geography annoys me, I fully understand that not redesigning it in every game wouldn't benefit the games much. However it's a bit annoying that I can't think of a good enough excuse for the changes to satisfy me with.

That one about Splatoon might have been more of a joke though. Transformations usually doesn't make biological sense.
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