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Link is about to experience the most important moment of his young life. He's alone with Zelda atop their town’s towering Goddess statue. They’re partaking in a sacred ritual as the key players in a larger ceremony, but as with most teenagers, they’re far more interested in one another than some old religious tradition.
Yes, Link is destined to one day become a hero, but at this point, he’s just the coolest kid in his small town’s academy. The biggest worries in Link’s life are passing a test, dealing with prank-playing bullies, and flirting with his headmaster’s daughter.
Skyloft is Link’s floating village in the sky. A barrier of impenetrable clouds segregates Skyloft from the rest of civilization and allows the town to develop a peaceful atmosphere. Knights on giant birds called loftwings patrol the skies and maintain order, which mostly entails protecting people from squeaky bats and a feral, raccoon-like cat that growls and hisses.
This little hamlet is every suburb in America, and Link is every teenager. As someone who grew up "outside of the city," I feel connected to this character in a far deeper way than I ever did to the boys of modest means in previous Zelda titles.
In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, a simple boy who lives in a one-room home with his uncle goes on to save his entire dimension.
This is an old story. If you have strength of spirit, then it doesn't matter how humble your beginnings. You can overcome even the most trying obstacles. It’s the classic American dream, and I have some difficulty relating to that.
Outside of a few hazy years when I was three to five, I've never had to share a room with anyone. The boy elf's circumstances are easy enough to understand, but I have no frame of reference in my own personal history to be able to empathize in a natural way. I've never been poor. I've never had less than two parents, and they never let me suffer in my entire life.
Perhaps that doesn't fully exclude me from the American dream, but it makes me feel like a cheat. If the mythology of this country is that hard work can take a person to the top, then having someone else give me everything must be the opposite of that.
A Link to the Past's protagonist doesn't get to experience youth in a way that I'm familiar with. The story begins with Link's dream calling him to action. He wakes up to find his uncle plunging out into a storm and then it's his turn.
Link doesn't waste any time getting to work on the adventure. He doesn't transition from wide-eyed boy to battle-ready warrior. He's ready for battle before the player ever takes control of him. While this is exciting — and I would have the game begin no other way — immediately starting the game with this type of character puts another barricade between him and myself.
You never see this Link have a moment to be a child. I'm an adult, and I still spend most of my time as a child. As a kid, I had an embarrassing amount of time to just sit around or play games.
No matters of importance ever required my attention. Hell, nothing of zero importance required my presence either. I was utterly unrequired on Earth until I was probably about 24. Unlike A Link to the Past's green-clad traveler. He had a princess, a kingdom, and a world relying on him within the first hour of the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's hero starts off with an abundance of childhood. Kokiri village is a city of children who seem to do nothing but play similar to Peter Pan's Lost Boys. This Link, however, still doesn't quite resonate with me. Not because of any failing on the developer's part, but again due to my cushioned life.
Ocarina's hero is an orphan, and that trait taints all of his interactions with his fellow Kokiri. They look at him with a slight melancholy because he is different. Sure, I experienced alienation in school, but nothing like the deep divide of knowing that the people you see day-to-day consider you to be completely foreign. Every time I felt different from the kids around me, it was mostly because my hair wouldn't lay flat.
The Links that populate the rest of the games tend to follow a similar pattern. They're all interesting characters, but I've never felt like they represented my experiences, well, until now.
The Skyloftian Link of Skyward Sword lives in a perfect village and has every comfort he could hope for. He wants for nothing. His sleepy, secure borough has created a youth class that is easy-going and carefree. Greedy shop owners and lazy employees fill the strip-mall equivalent. Other kids Link’s age kill their time by bragging about their loftwing skills, doing manual-labor jobs for a few rupees, and hanging out in cliques. That’s the kind of life I’m familiar with.
Growing up in an upper-middle-class family afforded me plenty of time to worry about chasing after girls or winning my next hockey game. Danger never entered my life. My parents, school, and community protected and coddled me to the point that I hungered for something amazing to happen even if it means something tragic has to occur.
The early narrative of Skyward Sword excels due to this fresh way that it sets up the stakes for the characters involved. Something tragic does happen, and leaving Skyloft to chase after adventure down on the surface is a scary proposition for the entitled teenager. Link has everything to lose.
Giving it all up for the opportunity to confront the outside world weighed heavily on me as I guided the pointy-eared boy beneath the clouds for the first time, but I didn't have a choice. Garbed in his famous green duds, Link didn’t hesitate, and neither did I. We jumped at the opportunity to fulfill the fantasy of becoming the hero of legend.
Here my association with the Skyward Sword Link coalesced. He has no business being so brave. His upbringing has been easier than a Kirby game, and when his world is flipped upside down he doesn't even hesitate? To me, that makes perfect sense.
Being entitled can turn people into marshmallows, but not usually. Most of the time, that kind of treatment provides a person with an undeserved sense of invincibility. When people tell you that you are special for long enough, it's easy to believe it.
Despite two decades of being handed everything, I've had moments where I leaped into action without a second thought. I applied my poorly remembered Boy Scouts first aid on a woman having a seizure, while everyone else panicked. When my best friend was being assaulted during second-grade recess, I ran to him and slugged the bully in the mouth. I talked to the police when no one else at the party would. Sure, that particular night ended with a paramedic pulling stun-gun darts out of my back, but I never felt anything less than impervious…that's probably why they tasered me.
This Link and I know the cushions of suburbia. While my exploits — when written out like that — don't look quite as noble as "saving the princess," I still feel very much like him. He was born into a lucky circumstance far removed from strife. He had all the free time in the world to discover his town, hobbies, and himself. And instead of all these things turning him into a neurotic mess, he's capable of acting with determined bravery. He is that way specifically because his youth was handed to him on a rupee-lined platter. Just like me.