#serial yapper

In fact it's just every part of the intro. Let me tell you now: the dialogue options you pick here do not affect your PC's relationship to NPCs. They don't affect the game at all. But they affect a very important thing in the player's perception. Italics there.

When they give you a variety of dialogue options they. They did a thing. They make you feel like you have control over Link's personality, and I think that this early set up of him makes this game great. It doesn't exactly do much in universe, but it changes the player's connection with Link so much. It makes you feel CONNECTED to him in a way other games don't accomplish quite the same and I do believe it's all for the better. My brain just died moving on.

My other point is Groose. Also Zelda but she's obvious. I love internet shit,talking about a character's arc and personality and lore and all that stuff, but one thing I've always been obsessed with is their narrative purpose and how they serve the other characters around them. And god I love Groose for this.

Okay so right from his intro we see that Groose is an antagonist. He wants to get closer with Zelda and be the best guy in school and sees Link and Zelda's friendship and Link's talent as in the way of that, so he bullies Link to try and take him down a peg. Over the course of the game we get to watch him mature and take on goals larger than himself and truly mature into the kind of person he wanted to be at the beginning of the game by growing past his original goal. Very nice character writing, great for Loz and serving the bigger game really really well.

But another thing Groose does is set up a conflict for Link himself, as a regular guy . Groose is not connected to the main plot of SS at all. He in entirely on the human level even when he gets a bigger role, never part of the prophecies or reincarnating or whatever. His conflict with Link follows suit: it's entirely human. He keeps Link's character grounded and relatable to the player in a way almost no other Links have. OoT has it kinda in Mido but he has such an insanely small and missable role that I don't even count him with grace. But it's this entirely human problem with bullies, or just people drama in general, that most audiences can understand from their own life.

And SS is written well enough that the story still feels impactful regardless of Groose's small subplot but still. Zelda also adds to this by having a relationship with Link not only before the game starts but from having the human baseline. But she's so insanely obvious.

Anyway my original thesis was supposed to be about how the dialogue of the intro impacts Link's character through the game but this got away from me quick. Also totally in love with the ADHD headcanon, for ALL the Links actually, and

Obviously there's more to this Link that makes him a good character. He's expressive and has a better backstory than some other Links (at least he has two important relationships lol) and his story is good on it's own. But especially taking in the function of a video game, the best aspect of its medium, IMMERSION, SS Link is undeniably one of the best.