Always Here For That Nerd Shit

When you know Hylia only cares about royals and not the people but you just can’t prove it yet.

Honestly? I didn't have anything in mind. Just wanted to jump on the bandwagon lol

Since you wear the beta reader crown (👑), I will rant say that Paya and Saki's characters were heavily underutilized and Renewal is partially and excuse to give them time in the limelight and a character arc!

Nintendo hasn't been able to shake some of the unintentionally (or thoughtlessly) sexist notions that many societies hold. I was so sad that Paya's arc in TotK was her being like "oh, the ruins falling on my village and the research extended to them aren't actually important, the people are!!!" because of Dorian constantly hounding her to stop focusing on the ruins (that you know, fell on people's houses) and start focusing on her duties as chief instead. BOOOOO. Nintendo, she's not that naive ffs

yes, you read that right.

as much as i love all of the rito, i’ve got to say…nintendo’s lack of female warriors is genuinely starting to feel misogynistic.

and i’m not critiquing the characters themselves—don’t get it twisted. but rather the writing—or lack thereof, that makes them come off in such a way.

nintendo clearly does believe that women can fight—just look at the gerudo! but it’s almost beginning to feel intentional that the rito tribe is supposed to be misogynistic and extremely oppressive, in the devs’ eyes. i mean come on, the mantra “where the men are warriors and women the singers” (or something like that) is fucking ridiculous, hello?? literally WHAT in the 60’s ass patriarchy is this? this is a FANTASY SERIES, where anything should be possible and warrior characters should be united entirely, no matter their background.

aside from the gorons—who seem to either all be men, or gender neutral? the rito are the ONLY tribe/race within hyrule that have no female warriors, and it is SO agitating. where the fuck is the representation?

not to mention, the lack of women as a WHOLE in the village. most of them are either wives to male warriors, or children. if that doesn’t say something about the mfs who wrote them, then i don’t know what does. it’s kind of giving the idea that…hm, i don’t know…apparently women’s only value is to be a wife or child? maybe giving…that women are weak and perhaps useless? it’s giving a lot of unsavory things, and it’s a bad look.

if they intended to represent how some places go against women’s liberation, they’re doing it in extremely poor taste. there’s so many better ways to represent something like that. perhaps with a woman who desires to become a warrior, but is pushed down and denied, or a traveler who wanders hyrule and left rito village to become a warrior. just SOMETHING to show what goes on in the place and that’s not just “male warriors, women singers”.

i don’t know…it’s just an icky thing to me, especially as a feminist. i don’t talk about it much, but it fires me up on occasion. why have one entire race/tribe that is entirely women, plus other factions with female warriors, yet do nothing for this one species of characters. it’s actually so fucking suspicious and extremely misogynistic.

this is why i have rito OCs who are female warriors, and headcanons that say otherwise about canon. headcanons that many were previous warriors, and some people are trying to turn it around/change tradition. just anything to give me comfort in the awful writing that is given to the rito 😒

ugh they’re done so dirty, it makes me sick.

Isn’t it genuinely interesting how Tears of the Kingdom is so narratively at odds with Breath of the Wild? (No? Just me?)

BotW doesn’t have tons to say, but I think you can easily read that it’s about:

How becoming blinded by tradition is bad for a society.

How the extreme pressure placed on Zelda and Link is to everyone’s detriment.

That King Rhoam’s failure was not respecting his daughter’s interests and hoping putting her in a role she didn’t fit would save his kingdom.

That the power to change your life comes from within, and from love, and not prayer without action.

The world will move on and heal from imperialism. It’s sad the kingdom fell, but look, the people can survive without it.

So then we’ve got the sequel being all:

We sure should continue Hyrule’s imperial hegemony. Ancient tradition is awesome.

Zelda should be the one to sacrifice herself again. Link shouldn’t even emote when he finds out.

Rauru’s might makes right. It’s good to swear fealty to an alien invader and fine for them to build a fortress on your border.

Power and authority are determined by having the best weapons (in this case magic rocks).

We absolutely cannot move on. Ganondorf in particular does not change his plan, whatever that even is, after 100,000 years to think about it.

BotW ends with Zelda immediately grabbing the Sheikah slate and discussing her pet interest. TotK ends with members of each surrounding nation swearing fealty to Zelda, mirroring Rauru’s own Hyrule, a Hyrule that, like Rhoam’s, fell due to pride long ago.

The other night I freed Vah Medoh and then explored Rito a bit more, with the objective of getting sunset refs ^_^

do you ever think about how much of the original trilogy artoo spent silently watching the drama go down with popcorn