#not midlink

We deserve a Ganondorf who was an ordinary man, once.  A Ganondorf who was once a beloved chief to his tribe--who fell victim to a terrible and unending curse of violent hatred through no fault of his own.  A Ganondorf who lived bravely, who loved bravely, who fought bravely--and when he was at his weakest moment, this incarnation of hatred took hold of his soul.  A Ganondorf whose true spirit is still locked away within him, who has been an unwilling host to this vessel of evil for millennia--a Ganondorf who has tried and failed day in and day out to stand against this terrible curse.  

Let’s refresh ourselves on what happens here: we see Midna standing before the entrance to the Twilight Realm, facing Link and Zelda, who have come to bid her farewell before her return home.  She says a few words about about how light and shadow can’t mix, and Zelda steps in to tell her that this is untrue - “Shadow and light are two sides of the same coin,” she says.  “One cannot exist without the other.”  She mentions that the gods must have left the Mirror of Twilight in the world of light for a reason, and Midna is silent for a few moments, eyes downcast, before turning to Zelda once more and telling her how kind her words are.  And then turns away - and she sheds a tear of light - and the mirror is shattered - and she’s gone.

@theseventhsage very succinctly wrote a post just a handful of days ago about how this entire interaction “feels like a visual representation of an angsty 250k words mutual pining fanfic,” and not only could I not agree more, but there’s very good reason for it - a small, simple reason that’s really rather obvious, and is probably news to almost no one, but is no less heartbreaking for it:

Zelda knew.

It’s a notion that I’ve seen present in more than one fanmade piece of media: the idea that while their souls were as one, Zelda was able to see Midna’s hearts and its intentions as if they were her own.  But what’s important here is that this isn’t some baseless widespread headcanon of how events transpired - it is written plainly in the game’s text, directly from Zelda herself.

When Zelda’s soul reunites with her body, Midna is struck with awe, and she tries and fails to say something to the fellow princess.  Zelda speaks up first: “Say nothing, Midna,” she says.  “Your heart and mine were as one, however briefly... Such suffering you have endured.”

Such suffering you have endured.

Zelda knew Midna as intimately as Midna knew herself - she saw her past, her home, her struggles as the to-be ruler of a realm bathed in anti-light; she saw Zant’s violent usurping, and the transformation of her people by his dark power; she saw Midna’s true form, and her curse, and the moment she clutched her fragment of the Fused Shadow and fled her people in search of a divine beast.  Such suffering you have endured, she says, because she felt that suffering as intimately as her own troubled past - and with all of this taken into consideration, it’s inevitable that we arrive at one, completely irrefutable truth:

Zelda knew that Midna was going to destroy the Mirror of Twilight.

And Midna knew that she knew.  She had talked openly about the possibility of destroying the mirror as early as the Temple of Time: “You know, we could be assembling something truly terrible here...” she says to Link, after the battle with Armogohma. “It could be something that we'll ultimately have to destroy.”  Their final farewell in the Mirror Chamber feels so aggressively like an unspoken mutual pining because in more ways than one, it is - “Light and shadow can’t mix, as well all know,” Midna says aloud.  This is a decision I have to make, she says without saying.  Zelda’s response - that shadow and light are two sides of the same coin - is a silent plea, a gentle rebuttal: You don’t have to do this, she’s saying.  We can coexist.  I know we can.

Midna turns from her to face the entrance to the Twilight Realm, and Zelda opens her mouth as if to say more - but she stops.  She knows that, no matter how much she wishes for things to be different, this is a decision that only Midna can make.  A gentle desert breeze stirs up from behind her - as if to signify her resignation.

There is so much power hidden behind this scene, and the realization that this is all very real, based-entirely-in-canon goings-on here is one that helped me start to see Twilight Princess as more than a mere Ocarina of Time copycat.  The juxtaposition between Zelda’s measured, sorrowful poise and Link’s clueless smiling face as Midna bids them farewell is so carefully planned, so beautifully executed, and I am grateful every day that the devs went to such lengths to show the depths of their relationship in so few words -  even if we had to do a bit of digging beneath the surface in order to see it.