Who is Link really?

10 posts in this topic

Posted

I was just thinking maybe we could do a competition where people recreate scenes from the games, giving Link a strong personality, and people vote on the rendition they like best.

 

But of course there's the fact that each incarnation of Link is different from the others. I think we might all agree that Wind Waker Link is the most easily definable, due to his body language in the game, but otherwise the Links of the games are all blank slates onto which the player can project themselves and their beliefs. With a silent hero they can be anybody, and you can relate to them however you like.

 

But ignoring that, does anybody imagine a specific personality for Link? Or are you boring like me, and you just see what's presented to you? I imagine more the latter, but depending on your imagination you might actively project and write dialogue for Link as you play the game, and I think that's an interesting question to ask.

Sheethorded and CidaShipiniZH like this

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Posted

I like to imagine what Link from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask went through--being deprived of your childhood and then waking up a child again at the end but with your heavy experiences weighing on you, dealing with the stress of convincing everyone that you've already met but don't know you anymore that a great evil is about to happen. Then later, reliving that same trauma over and over again while gaining steadily stronger and more dreadful powers. I like to imagine that that Link pretty much went through his own personal hell, and suffers on his own but sometimes breaks down under the pressure. So he just went to live alone in the woods, dying with the dissatisfaction that he can't have passed on his emotions to someone else, causing the Hero's Shade to appear.

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Posted

And then Majora's Mask is a stress-induced nightmare? A nightmare about time, and the desperate struggle to make everything right, by doing it over again and again. Then ultimately the futility of it, knowing that there's no way to stop all the evil in the world, no matter how fast you work, and how much you know and can predict. The gift and curse of time travel. Poor baby.

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Posted

My specific personalty for Link, in most of the games, is a kid with convictions that doesn't quite fit in. Like, he usually starts from a very humble place (Only kid without a fairy, Grandma's house, small house on outskirts of town) and is thrust into something much bigger. I think he is definitely humble. 

 

He's obviously courageous. He has the triforce of Courage in most of the games. 

 

He's helpful and patient. He listens to what people tell him and helps people when he can. 

 

He's the ideal man, in my opinion. Strong, humble, courageous, helpful, patient, friendly, innocent.

 

I think what I like most about Link, specifically MM Link, is that he refuses to give up, even though everything is against him. The world constantly resets after 3 days and all his hard work is undone. Yet he still presses on and gives it his all. Even in the darkest of times, he remains innocent and courageous. 

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Posted

If Link had any flaws, what would they be? If you had to imagine some.


If anything the way we conceive our ideas of "ideal hero" says a lot about what we value in others.

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Posted

Yeah, maybe too quiet? But that's really only because the game dictates it so. He's very conversational if you watch how people respond to him. We don't really see what he says, but we know he says something.

 

And innocence and naivety are cut from the same cloth. Sometimes he makes poor life choices, such as allowing himself to be blasted from a cannon by Tetra, or walking into a bar filled with scary pirates at night. 

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Posted

Yeah, and too willing to listen to strangers. Link pretty much goes where characters tell him to go.

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Posted

Link is the Motherpuppying Terminator

 

Hyrulean Science created the perfect killing machine. Self upgrading, what we see in game as Link visiting a Fairy to get some kind of magic upgrade is actually his system rebooting as he integrates new technology. At the beginning of Zelda games where link is in some village, they've recently just cleared his data, and hired about a dozen actors to play his family and friends

 

Ganon was a rival inventor who's plans for a new cleaning robot were squashed when his designs were stolen by Shiek. Zelda's family maintains a closely guarded monopoly on all technology in the kingdom.

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Posted

I like to think that each incarnation has a different personality, each embodying the common traits of courage, loyalty, and heroism.

 

I imagine Link from Zelda I and II as a rash, reckless, loud, sarcastic, wise-cracking adventurer, but that could be influenced by the animated series. Regardless, I think that personalty fits this incarnation.

 

AlttP Link is kind and caring, but a little naiive and innocent. He barely knows his way with a sword, yet he's thrust into a journey he never wanted, but accepts if only for his uncle. He grows significantly through his journeys, and with each new land he visits, he grows tougher and more strong-willed. I headcanon that upon returning to Hyrule after Link's Awakening, he becomes a knight, protecting the Princess, until retiring only a few years later to return to a quiet life with his uncle.

 

OoT / MM Link is a child through his adventure through Hyrule, filled with a sense of wonder and excitement as he gets to travel and see places he's never seen before, meeting new people and species he's never met, off on a journey that overall seems rather pointless. 7 years later, he awakens in the body of an adult, yet he views everything through the eyes of a child. Suddenly that sense of wonder and excitement is gone, replaced with fear and regret. He could have changed all this if he had been there. So he wakes the sages and defeats Ganondorf, all the while losing every shred of childlike playfulness he ever had. In Majora's Mask, he's now viewing the world in the body of a child with the eyes of an adult. His friends have all left him, and he's now completely alone. Not only that, but he just went on this outrageous journey and saved the world and nobody knows it. Zelda knows it, but she's not the same; she's not the same Zelda he knew, the one he "grew up" with. (I have this whole headcanon that the goddesses brought Link and the Skull Kid together into their fictional world to give Link a world to save again, and to help the Skull Kid get over his sullen teenager phase, but that's a theory for another time. Needless to say I love the Hero of Time. He's mah baby.)

WW / PH Link is, similar to OoT Link, a child filled with curiosity and a sense of adventure. That is the whole point, right? That he's the embodiment of the Hero's spirit? However, unlike the hero of time, this Link's excitement only expands as he goes on his adventure. He meets exciting new people and discovers an ancient kingdom and HOLY CRAP THAT'S SO COOL. Yet the whole time he tries to hide his excitement behind a dignified heroic persona. He has trouble taking things seriously, but when shit gets real (near the end of the game), he buckles down and subdues his childish excitement for the good of the people.

 

My headcanon for the Four Links' personalities from FSA draws heavily off the manga adaptation. Each color has a different personality based on a different part of Link's own personality. Green is adventurous and reckless, drawn from his Hero's Spirit and courage, but without the rational and calm parts that Vio takes from. However, Vio alsto takes Link's insecurities and childish worries. Red draws on Link's sense of childish wonder. He's innocent, playful, and very emotion-driven. Blue takes form from Link's temper and fighting spirit. He's quick to judge, easily angered, and doesn't think before engaging a battle. While on their own unbalanced, together they create a balance that makes them work well as a team, after overcoming their differences, of course.

 

MC Link is like the little kid who was always too mature for his age. He's very intelligent and hard-working, and gets right down to business. He only goes to the Picori Festival because Zelda wanted to go. And that's not to say that he didn't enjoy the festival wholeheartedly, just that he wouldn't have gone if Zelda hadn't. A bit of an introvert, meeting Ezlo was good for him. The hat's quirky and sarcastic personality constantly has Link rolling his eyes, but after a time he adds a smile in there. He meets an array of interesting people on his journey, from minish to man, and it causes him to open up just a bit more. He still mostly only talks to Zelda, though, even as the years go by.

 

TP Link is a humble farm boy, who courageously takes up arms to save his friends and his static stereotypical love interest. He goes from zero to hero in a matter of a musical number (muffled Go the Distance plays) and saves the world because ain't that the right thing to do? I picture Link as being a caring, considerate, sweetheart of a guy, sincere and honest. The true hero type.

 

ST Link is a spitting image of his grandfather (great-grandfather?), the Hero of Winds, and his personality is largely the same, albeit a little more lazy and carefree.

 

SS Link would rather be loafing around or sleeping, but he's passionate about what he loves (*coughzeldacough*) and will do anything for her. He's a bit of a goofball, but Fi keeps him in check. "Master Link, I estimate a 95% chance that planting bombs in that Mogma's hole is a bad idea. Master Link, I suggest that you cease this behavior immediately and continue with the task at hand."

 

AlBW Link is lazy and childish, but knows immediately when to get down to business. A bit of a coward, he learns to overcome this on his journey, becoming Ravio's antithesis.

 

 

 

 

I'm extremely sorry for the long post.

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