#golvio

I feel like the Rose Quartz who looks like Rose Quartz *is* our Rose Quartz, from a flashback. Given that we know the zoo was built for PD, it’s not that odd for our Rose to be there. However, I do think the big Gem Steven’s giving driving lessons to is an actual Rose Quartz from the zoo, one who was bubbled. Steven’s probably helping her acclimate to life outside the zoo.

^ that is also plausible imo.

edit: oh actually, it’s totally our rose, because the zoo has a legend about her.

“There is a story of an opening wall. A very long time ago, a Gem came through a wall hole to help someone who was hurt.”

When I talk about Ganondorf’s symbolic value in stories about the disruption of monarchies, I assume it’s clear that I’m using “monarchies” as a cipher for “entrenched power structures based on arbitrary hierarchies of privilege.”

Still, I’m not denying that there are clear undercurrents of nationalism in the Legend of Zelda games – and sometimes, as in the case of Skyward Sword, giant waves of nationalism – but I think this is endemic to the heroic narrative that structures the gameplay of the series. The archetype of “the brave hero who fights to defend their homeland against malevolent outside forces” goes back to the earliest recorded human stories, of course, but I think the nationalistic elements of this narrative have been emphasized by the cultural context that shaped the heroic fantasy that directly inspired the Zelda games.

Specifically, the Zelda series gets a lot of its DNA from popular Japanese fantasy epics of the 1980s, including Guin Saga and Record of Lodoss War, which were inspired by Robert E. Howard and Dungeons & Dragons, respectively. There’s no small amount of Lord of the Rings in the mix as well. Nationalistic ideologies from WWII and the Cold War are therefore built into not just the dominant tropes but also the fundamental structure of contemporary heroic fantasy, including many video games.

I think it’s fair to argue that the Zelda series has challenged this narrative, however. For example:

- The hero is deeply traumatized by what he was forced to do (Majora’s Mask)    - We should look at this from the perspective of the bad guy (The Wind Waker)- It’s possible that our homeland is just as evil as our enemies (Twilight Princess)- The bad guys are just like us and deserve sympathy (A Link Between Worlds)

I loved Breath of the Wild but was disappointed by its story, which felt somewhat incomplete to me. For example, why would the Hyrulean royal family ban technology? What inspired so many people to defect from the Sheikah and establish the Yiga Clan? If Ganon was once a person, how furious and tormented by pain would he have to be for the Calamity to take the specific form it did? Where are the old temple “dungeons” that are present in the other games? Why is the player never allowed to go underground?

The way the game brushed off these types of questions did indeed feel like an excuse to suggest something along the lines of “Hyrule never did anything wrong and is an innocent victim of malicious foreign powers,” a narrative that has disturbing echoes in real-world political ideologies. 

Your fetish is antimonarchism?

I read that as “I’ve always associated Lotor with bagpipes.” That was an interesting mental image right there.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on Ganondorf. There’s a part of him that seems genuinely concerned with the Gerudo and giving them a better life but at the same time, you can’t exactly fight being the reincarnation of the primordial evil. The guy is literally a walking curse, and every good intention he ever has will probably be twisted by that. Honestly? It’s a little sad.

NGL though, Pig Ganon is body goals.

As for the various enemy factions in TLoZ, they’re also a mixed bag. The implication usually seems to be that they simply don’t exist until Ganon starts to rise in power again, or if they do, it’s in very small numbers. Going back to Ganondorf as a living curse, he seems to literally create most if not all of them, except for maybe a few undead and naturally occurring creatures, like Poes and Skulltulas. It’s neat, but I wish we’d get to see more monsters as at least neutral, if not outright friendly (such as that one demon in SS). It was a big success in the Mario games, so why not try it with Zelda some time?

Now, I have heard there might be a little something like that in Breath of the Wild, but we’ll have to see.

To go into a little more detail specifically, I’m very fond of the undead in the Zelda games, because they always feel like they tell such an interesting story. The vast majority of the time, they look nothing like anything else that could have died, implying that they were spontaneously created, or warped somehow. Poes do seem to form from people sometimes, but how often, and why? And should we feel kinda bad for capturing what may have once been a human soul in a tiny bottle?

I am *still* salty that they seem to have decided that Ghirahim is the one thing that’s not going to carry over from Skyward Sword. I swear, that guy has more potential in his left pinky finger than Demise had in his whole body, even if he’s just playing second banana to Ganondorf the next time he shows up.