breathe in, breathe out

I really think a lot of the reason people don't bat an eye much with hilzel is simply because their dynamic as a default from an outside perspective goes into something like this:

Zelda: The passive, graceful, kind, meek, and pure as light princess. One who cannot do harm even if she tried, and one who is naive to a childish extent.

Hilda: The brash and the "cool" of the warm that is Zelda.

From an outside perspective, their dynamic falls into the sweet girl x prickly girl dynamic.

I do sometimes like that dynamic, especially when done correctly and not just to play with flat tropes, but I think doing that for hilzel does a disservice to the little (but telling) depth that can be interpreted from their characters.

I understand why people give Zelda a more sweet characterization as she does come off exactly as that at almost all times in the game. Zelda is like the picture perfect princess, but what I really want people to understand is that the ending of the game truly tells us what her main flaw as a princess is:

Her frailness to accurately communicate and connect with those beyond her understanding.

When Zelda tries to talk Hilda down from proceeding a fight with Link, it is very clear that absolutely NOTHING coming out of Zelda's mouth will convince Hilda to stop. That is simply because in Hilda's eyes, Zelda doesn't and will NEVER understand what she feels.

Unfortunately Hilda is right, Zelda will never understand. No matter how close she empathizes, it will never be enough for such a case with Hilda.

Hilda backs down only when Ravio steps forth and convinces her to stop (bordering on passively telling her to give up). My interpretation is that Zelda was seemingly trying to aim at fixing the situation instead of letting it go (something Ravio was able to do in a way). I do think Zelda desperately tried to claw her way through Hilda's mind in an attempt to help her fix everything, but perhaps she needed to see from another perspective and not her own, when a situation was just too far gone for even her own hand to mend.

There is no fixing this situation at this point in time, there will never be a point of truly fixing any of this.

Even with Zelda and Link's act of mercy and forgiveness (?) via the restoration of Lorule's Triforce, it almost felt like they were giving both Hilda and Ravio a second chance to rebuild and change themselves and their world (not fix). It was until the end that they finally understood they needed another chance, not a pure and direct solution. Without that, nothing would change.

Zelda needed to see beyond her own perspective, that there were some things that just couldn't be entirely saved. She as a princess won't always have the hand to fix everything, even as "perfect" as she may be perceived.

Zelda instinctively believed that pure compassion and understanding are enough to reach anyone's heart. Whenever she focuses her eyes on someone whose pain exists outside her own lived experience, she struggles because empathy alone cannot bridge every divide in the heart.

It is until the end that she realizes, her attempts to save Hilda came off as rash at times.

It is until the end that she realizes, perhaps her attempts at helping came off as slightly condescending at times.