An Appreciation of Zelda
I think that, fundamentally, the reason why I love this series comes down to a focus on mystery, exploration, and the unknown. I personally believe that it should be legally mandated that each child grow up with a forest in their backyard. The reason for this is quite simple: forests provide an incomparable environment for self-sufficiency, passively encourage aimless wandering, and imbue children-wayfarers with a sense of wonder that is not quelled even after they have left the hidden paths and peaceful copses of the woods. For me, this was the case, and, after I had moved to somewhere far more tragically suburban years later, I received a paper box of dull gold that displayed a shield, along with the words The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.
Waking up in Kokiri Forest was truly an awakening. Vividly, I remember searching for the Kokiri Sword, only to find I had to crawl through a tiny, secret tunnel on top of a hill. I was blown away, and by this, the simplest of things. Why, up until this point in my life, had I never come across a secret passage? Where was my treasure chest? My sword? As the game progressed, as I entered into the enigmatic bowels of the Deku Tree, only to fail him, being forced to watch this serene old spirit die in front of me, I forged a deep bond with this medium of art. At that moment, confused, afraid, and sad, I became young Link. You see, the inimitable beauty of video games is that they put an exterior individual into an interactive role that is held by thousands of people all over the world; the story is the same, each person seeing the same scenes, facing the same villains, but there is also a degree of separateness, in that each finds different objects of beauty, hatred, or ambiguity. And the connection is all the stronger due to an identification with the main character, amplified through personal choices and freedoms that are played out and echo within the in-game realm. They affect the characters we love, the locations we cherish, and in doing so, they affect us all the more.
It should be apparent that my favorite locales in this series are, almost universally, those found within forests, although there are a few notable exceptions. I have a Tolkien-esque love of trees and the organic strangeness that pervades them, especially in the setting of large and ancient woods. The Lost Woods, with their sacred meadow and temple, would find me wandering in them for hours, trying to see if, just maybe, a certain combination of paths would allow me to reach yet another hidden grove. The Lost Woods of Twilight Princess were so off-putting, and so disturbing, that I found myself continually venturing through them, struggling to find some semblance of sense — something that would make them knowable, or explainable.
I still don’t know.
Something not unique to Zelda, but exemplified by it as a series, is its in-game ambiance. The music, the colors, and the direct environment all blend into an atmosphere that begs for exploration, and yet disdains all attempts to fully discover and map it out. This mindset, this longing for discovery, was absolutely imperative for me during my formative years. Although perhaps it began in reality and eventually melded with several other unknown experiences and factors, I contribute, at least in part, my passion for knowledge and understanding and eloquence and beauty to fantasy. For some reason, the solution that manifested itself in the finding of the Kokiri Sword, tucked away in a small glade, has never left me.
Tolkien once remarked that the heart of good fantasy, especially with regard to the constructed universe, was a healthy dose of the unexplained — that there was lore, history, and tradition about which the reader knew nothing whatsoever. He compared it to standing upon a high hill and looking toward a distant, uninhabited castle. The fortress and its lands were unexplained, and unknown to the traveler, but nothing in the world compelled him to explore further more than this desire to seek out the unknown. If we are given everything, there is no mystery. But we are intuitive, creative, and explorative when elements are unrecognizable and foreign. There is no small amount of theorizing in fantasy, whether it be the Legend of Zelda or Tolkien’s world of the Lord of the Rings. Who knows the significance of Twilight Princess’s City in the Sky, the strangeness of Stone Temple Tower, or the origins of Snowpeak Ruins? Something very fundamental in human nature compels us to venture forth in order to discover, hypothesize, and change the inner landscape of the individual through exterior locations. This is why people are drawn to Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, and few visit rural towns of the American Midwest. These places hold ancient significance which can only be guessed at by historians and archaeologists, and, even if their purpose is partially uncovered, they still resonate with age, history, and myth. This is very much the spirit of these games. By virtue of it being a Zelda game, we know that, somewhere, a vast complex lies hidden in the heart of the jungle, or the desert, or deep under the surface of a lake. Maybe we will uncover something within them, or perhaps we will leave far more confused than when we entered. Above all, though, we long to be spirited away, to be taken and held in places wherein we feel a strange comfort that beckons us back, time after time.
Waking up in Kokiri Forest was truly an awakening. Vividly, I remember searching for the Kokiri Sword, only to find I had to crawl through a tiny, secret tunnel on top of a hill. I was blown away, and by this, the simplest of things. Why, up until this point in my life, had I never come across a secret passage? Where was my treasure chest? My sword? As the game progressed, as I entered into the enigmatic bowels of the Deku Tree, only to fail him, being forced to watch this serene old spirit die in front of me, I forged a deep bond with this medium of art. At that moment, confused, afraid, and sad, I became young Link. You see, the inimitable beauty of video games is that they put an exterior individual into an interactive role that is held by thousands of people all over the world; the story is the same, each person seeing the same scenes, facing the same villains, but there is also a degree of separateness, in that each finds different objects of beauty, hatred, or ambiguity. And the connection is all the stronger due to an identification with the main character, amplified through personal choices and freedoms that are played out and echo within the in-game realm. They affect the characters we love, the locations we cherish, and in doing so, they affect us all the more.
It should be apparent that my favorite locales in this series are, almost universally, those found within forests, although there are a few notable exceptions. I have a Tolkien-esque love of trees and the organic strangeness that pervades them, especially in the setting of large and ancient woods. The Lost Woods, with their sacred meadow and temple, would find me wandering in them for hours, trying to see if, just maybe, a certain combination of paths would allow me to reach yet another hidden grove. The Lost Woods of Twilight Princess were so off-putting, and so disturbing, that I found myself continually venturing through them, struggling to find some semblance of sense — something that would make them knowable, or explainable.
I still don’t know.
Something not unique to Zelda, but exemplified by it as a series, is its in-game ambiance. The music, the colors, and the direct environment all blend into an atmosphere that begs for exploration, and yet disdains all attempts to fully discover and map it out. This mindset, this longing for discovery, was absolutely imperative for me during my formative years. Although perhaps it began in reality and eventually melded with several other unknown experiences and factors, I contribute, at least in part, my passion for knowledge and understanding and eloquence and beauty to fantasy. For some reason, the solution that manifested itself in the finding of the Kokiri Sword, tucked away in a small glade, has never left me.
Tolkien once remarked that the heart of good fantasy, especially with regard to the constructed universe, was a healthy dose of the unexplained — that there was lore, history, and tradition about which the reader knew nothing whatsoever. He compared it to standing upon a high hill and looking toward a distant, uninhabited castle. The fortress and its lands were unexplained, and unknown to the traveler, but nothing in the world compelled him to explore further more than this desire to seek out the unknown. If we are given everything, there is no mystery. But we are intuitive, creative, and explorative when elements are unrecognizable and foreign. There is no small amount of theorizing in fantasy, whether it be the Legend of Zelda or Tolkien’s world of the Lord of the Rings. Who knows the significance of Twilight Princess’s City in the Sky, the strangeness of Stone Temple Tower, or the origins of Snowpeak Ruins? Something very fundamental in human nature compels us to venture forth in order to discover, hypothesize, and change the inner landscape of the individual through exterior locations. This is why people are drawn to Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, and few visit rural towns of the American Midwest. These places hold ancient significance which can only be guessed at by historians and archaeologists, and, even if their purpose is partially uncovered, they still resonate with age, history, and myth. This is very much the spirit of these games. By virtue of it being a Zelda game, we know that, somewhere, a vast complex lies hidden in the heart of the jungle, or the desert, or deep under the surface of a lake. Maybe we will uncover something within them, or perhaps we will leave far more confused than when we entered. Above all, though, we long to be spirited away, to be taken and held in places wherein we feel a strange comfort that beckons us back, time after time.