A female Link?

[Pandaxclone2]

You're forgetting that reincarnation doesn't mean you suddenly remember your past life and every life before. Aang and Korra only get a free pass since they have Raava and spirit powers to commune/interact with their past lives. Link doesn't have such a luxury but regardless he still reincarnates. Seriously though, look no further than Goddess Hylia/Zelda for an example on this.

May I remind you that the Triforce originally started out as singular triangles, both Wisdom and Power. Adventure of Link introduced Courage to the group. It's only when a Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time came around that it was established that A. The Triforce is three triangles that make up a bigger triangle and B. that the Goddesses left it here after leaving from their creation. It's not like Nintendo isn't above changing things up these days either, as one just needs to look at Lorule and its Triforce in ALBW.

In-universe however the Triforce is a constant omnipotent object with nothing much changing. Link on the other hand is different almost every single time, so is Zelda and Ganon from time to time. Since it's established that Link isn't the same, it opens the door to many possibilities (and justification on Nintendo's part if they ever did so since they set it up), one of them being that Link can be female. Does this mean Ganon and Zelda could be opposite genders? Yes also, but a bit more strict since only females by the name of Zelda end up being princesses in the Royal Family and Ganondorf is the only Gerudo male. Link doesn't have that pressure on him since he lives mostly by himself in a house, sometimes near a town.

 

[Blue Knight]

So it comes down to the possibility of them being capable of pulling off an explanation of how Link can be a woman? Remember that, yes, originally there were just triangles called the Triforce of Wisdom and Triforce of Power, BUT, there was no further mention of anything else, no rules written, no comments made on their nature. Thus, making another sacred triangle and writing the lore behind it is simple and doesn't damage anything; as there wasn't any lore behind them beforehand.

Link, however, has been consistently male, and is stated to be the original hero reincarnating, who, for the record, was male.

Pretty much giving the option of making Link a girl breaks/undermines all about his character and turns him into a self-insert. There's no question as to how much this damages the lore and plot, just look at games like Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fates. Their main characters absolutely suck, being technically their own characters, but also self-inserts in this same way, and the plot suffers heavily for it.

So, no. Link isn't multiple people who could possibly be different from each other. Link is a single individual who is reborn through the ages. There are also differences between something that's already established and can be reused, and something completely new that only serves to pander to political correctness hype. For example, Link using his right hand in SS is perfectly fine, it's already been established that he's ambidextrous as far as Zelda I. Turning Link into a female (read: turning him into a female, no, there's no game with a female Link, it would be a game where Link is female, as he is indeed an individual character) falls on the latter field.

 

[MindzEye]

This has been a facsinating argument right here. (Weird that y'all would talk about avatar and Korra in between, but whatever.)
My comment is pretty old up there, and maybe I was a little too excited talking about Linkle and whatnot. Since I've come to think hard on it, Link is definitely a fixture in Nintendo character history. A change too severe to the plot would perhaps upset myself and others.

But @ALinkBetweenSites, your arguments don't otherwise explain how it is Link is his own character. Unless there are some great examples of otherwise, any expression I did see from him I'd have made myself.

It felt to me not as if you were playing the next legendary hero each game, more like you were the next hero each game. Though expected every time, there was mysticism in that moment when you're told only you have what it takes.
I still personally would not mind if Link could be selected M or F, not that I'd enforce it. Standing by my previous statement made sideways, "It's all up to Nintendo what they want to include."

 

[JuicyFlare]

I believe the female link is just a fan of his and wanted to be more like him. Her name is Linkle.


I hate how I didn't type a post longer than this, but i just don't have much to say about this. lol

 

[Pandaxclone2]

Link's gender being consistent means little to nothing here. You know who also started out as a male? Avatar Wan. Yet, since then to now the Avatar has been shown to be male and female throughout. Gender of the original person isn't important. So was the original Link male? Yes. Are all Links shown thus far to be male? Yes. Does that impact Link possibly showing up as a female in one of the future games? Only in the sense that somebody who has been consistently portrayed as a male can now be of either gender in each new title (and I don't mean a gender select a la Pokemon; I mean Link could be male in one title, female in the another, etc.) , but otherwise no. The Triforce example shows that even something as consistent as that has been revised, and they aren't afraid to mix things up a bit like with ALBW. Because lets be honest; if they didn't mix it up a bit the whole franchise would be stale by now.

This wouldn't even damage the lore of the game. A lot of Links have come and gone and it's been pretty much implied that all these games if not already sequels to one another, happen across centuries between each other. Adding a female Link to the game doesn't hurt anything, it only adds to the lore. The only thing you could truly argue is that it may affect/impact the plot of that particular game, but like with all controversial things (i.e. should Tifa's boobs be shrunken down in the upcoming FF7 remake?), you'll have people who are either for it or against it, not all the way on either side.

"So, no. Link isn't multiple people who could possibly be different from each other. Link is a single individual who is reborn through the ages." I'm having a hard time figuring out what you mean by this. They both mean the exact same thing. Just like with the Avatar example, even though they come from different backgrounds and ethnicities in the physical world, by their very core they are the exact same person. Link is the Hero's Spirit, and it doesn't even matter if he isn't called Link; that's just a name which is given to some of his incarnations. Since he is the same person in spirit but is different throughout the franchise that does mean he can be female in some incarnations.

Your example of Skyward Sword Link's right-handedness being perfectly fine doesn't fly because you're going on a quirk of the developers not being bothered to put in unique sprites for both left and right. Even Link to the Past suffers with this and the english localisation team conjured up some excuse in the manual about how this Link always points his Shield towards Death Mountain because he senses evil from there. That's neat and all but not really from the source.

You keep mentioning about pandering to political correctness but that argument falls flat on its face. They don't have to do it for political correctness; they can do it to add to their franchise and for the audience. If it's something that puts a twist on the franchise and makes it interesting, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's entirely up to them if they want to do that, but all I can say is that they've left themselves the option of doing that through the lore of the game.

 

[MindzEye]

You know a guy online had a neat theory to the name "Link." It could be symbolic, as some form or connection between the player in the real world, and the Link who is of the world Hyrule. Metaphorically, he's the "Link" that connects the player to the world on the screen. And it really could be anyone.

A Zelda game is a Zelda game. Well written and designed, I'd play it as soon as it comes out. What gender was the protagonist now? I was too busy rescuing the world with him/her. I don't feel a girl Link, or an option of either, would change anything really.

 

[JuicyFlare]

;-; such a long post.

 

[Blue Knight]

Zelda I Link being ambidextrous, not just a quirk in sprite-mirroring. Now this is part of canon since the beginning, thus, Link can consistently use either right or left hand. BotW Link uses his right hand with no motion controls, too.

A Zelda game might just be that, a game. But it's still a game with lore behind it and really, of the writers retcon their own lore in adding in something as a female Link, which does contradict canon and not just in that "Link has been consistently male"; would honestly be a pretty awful cop-out and proof of them not caring about it.

Link hasn't just been consistently male, he's indicated by the inner lore of the series to be it, regardless of whether or not the gameplay itself would be the same if they slapped on boobs on him. And it's not just " many Links have come and gone" it's "Link has come and gone many times", the same person being reborn, any differences in appearance are due to artstyle changes. Again, a game with a female Link wouldn't be that, it would be a game where Link is female. And both of these contradict in-game lore (retcon) and Nintendo's own views on him (a single character with multiple incarnations, like Mario, and Hylia's/Zelda's chosen hero)

As for Link as a character or avatar or stand-in, he's the former. He's a fully fledged character with a personality, that the player is meant to use to experience the game through. With an avatar, you put your personality on the game, with a character like Link, Mario or Samus, you use them and their personality to experience the game.

For example, an avatar in Monster Hunter is used to put the player's thoughts and personality on the game, to personally act on it. Link is used for the player to immerse themselves into the game and nothing more. With the former, you put yourself on the game, with the latter, you adapt yourself into him to act on the game.

Pit on Kid Icarus is the same case as Mario, Link and Samus, with actual dialogue.

Tl;dr, if fem!Link happens, it retcons a big part of in-game lore and devalues Link as a character into an avatar.

 

[Pandaxclone2]

The developers have retconned their own lore before without much consequence. The seven wise sages were all apparently human males in LttP, then in OOT and WW they are actually all different races with Zelda being one of them and the whole sealing wars happened differently, except in ALBW Zelda isn't one of the sages anymore and somehow Ganon, despite being declared dead since the last game he appears in before it is just sealed again, and in TP the sages are again depicted as men. If they're going to not even consistently show some important background lore like that then there's no problem with a female Link, especially since there would not even be any contradiction to the lore like the clustertrain of retcons above me.

So what you're suggesting to me is that no matter what appearance changes whatsoever that happen and that no matter which part of the timeline is in (WW notwithstanding), Link in-universe can only be portrayed as male? Literally nothing but the lack of a female Link (who would be the same Link as before, just not some female Link) thus far suggests that this is the case. The only thing that happens to stay consistent at all if not a little changed from time to time is the Hero's clothes which to be honest would work just as well on a female as they would a male. Honestly though, I would like to know where exactly in the game lore that says "Link can only be male" and explicitly stating that, because I doubt that part exists.

And saying that it would be a cop-out is just as bad as saying the official Zelda timeline is a cop-out "just because there's no special ending in OOT to suggest that Link dies and the Downfall timeline happens." If people are unable to fill the gaps in themselves on what happened then that's only their fault. There's no faults whatsoever to having Link be female in one depiction as the franchise is layed before us now, there's only people who feel this would drastically damage the whole franchise. There's also other people who would welcome the difference and then there's people who will just play the game regardless because it's a Zelda game.

Having Link be a female only devalues the character as an avatar (i.e. what you choose to identify as, not an A:TLA avatar) if the option to choose between a female and a male Link is in the same game. If you give Link only a female incarnation in a game however, that only potentially devalues the character as an avatar in the A:TLA sense, which to be honest isn't really devaluing much; they're still the hero(ine), they'll still save the day, they'd still have the Hero's Spirit. End of story.

 

[MindzEye]

Ok. Let's make Linkle a big deal then. Have a little culture shock in- game that the next hero is a girl, much like our culture shock right here about it. Your argument, (it isn't that they happened to be men, there's something behind it.) is a bit true I think. Why not write down a little story behind it? Make the theoretical Linkle like an albino, or a mutant like that.

Sounds ugly the way I wrote it, but I'm in a hurry. If any of you get what I mean, applause to ya.

 

[Pandaxclone2]

Ok. Let's make Linkle a big deal then. Have a little culture shock in- game that the next hero is a girl, much like our culture shock right here about it. Your argument, (it isn't that they happened to be men, there's something behind it.) is a bit true I think. Why not write down a little story behind it? Make the theoretical Linkle like an albino, or a mutant like that.

Sounds ugly the way I wrote it, but I'm in a hurry. If any of you get what I mean, applause to ya.

The beauty of the Zelda franchise is that there wouldn't even be that much of a culture shock in-game about it. I mean sure, the chemistry might look a bit off but that's only to an outsider looking in i.e. the player.

There's a nice theory going around that says the reason why the story is different usually but contains the same core parts (Hero saves Princess, fights bad guy) is that like the title suggests it is literally a legend, and like legends the story changes and twists as time goes on and it passes on to more generations.

Simply put there likely wouldn't even be a need for backstory on it except some exposition explaining to the player how this could happen. Something along the lines of a god/dess saying, "Hey, so, you have this spirit in you called the Hero's Spirit that reincarnates every now and again. If for whatever weird in-universe reason you wanted to know why you were a girl/feel like a tomboy often, it's likely because a good majority of your past lives were male. So, cool. Doesn't matter much since you're still gonna save the world."

 

[Blue Knight]

The sages are naturally different on these games since they occur in different timelines. Further, the Wise Men thing is a mistranslation by NoA, it was corrected back into Sages on the GBA remake, so it's not a retcon.

The Sages on WW and OoT are of different races, yes. The ones in TP aren't, as Link never awakened the Sages in the Child Timeline, thus they are different people. Meanwhile, the ones in ALBW are also different, they are the descendants of the ones awakened in OoT. Also, Ganon can also reincarnate after being killed, as shown from TP to FSA and in the whole DT at large. Again, not a retcon, as the fact that he can reincarnate/revive has been stated as far as Zelda II.

There's no indication whatsoever that gender/ethnicity can change amongst reincarnations, in fact, there is proof of the opposite as shown with, again, Link, Ganon and Zelda. Zelda II's Zelda, for example, had a brother, and I'm certain there were other male monarchs in Hyrule, yet none of them are stated to possess the powers Zelda has, Triforce or no Triforce, thus, none of them are reincarnations of Zelda/Hylia. Ganon, too, IS consistently a male Gerudo among his reincarnations and revivals, ergo, the same as Zelda and Ganon can apply for Link; as he's part of that same cycle. In fact, nowhere is it stated nor implied that reincarnation works on TLoZ the same or similar way as in Avatar, pretty much only in the name of Spirit of the Hero, nothing else.

And, of course, options are welcome on a franchise unless they break canon, make all the Three Golden Goddesses male, for example, and you break a part of canon. If a fem!Link is allowed, why not a square Triforce, or retconning the Master Sword into the Master Spear. Lorule and it's Triforce are perfectly viable options as nowhere was it implied that there couldn't be an alternate Hyrule, and it was already inplied that there could be multiple Triforces, one for each timeline.

And yes, female Link does devalue him as a character by turning him into an avatar of the player, a step into character customization; which almost by definition removes the character's own characteristics in order to allow the player to insert themselves into the game.

 

[MindzEye]

The sages are naturally different on these games since they occur in different timelines. Further, the Wise Men thing is a mistranslation by NoA, it was corrected back into Sages on the GBA remake, so it's not a retcon.

The Sages on WW and OoT are of different races, yes. The ones in TP aren't, as Link never awakened the Sages in the Child Timeline, thus they are different people. Meanwhile, the ones in ALBW are also different, they are the descendants of the ones awakened in OoT. Also, Ganon can also reincarnate after being killed, as shown from TP to FSA and in the whole DT at large. Again, not a retcon, as the fact that he can reincarnate/revive has been stated as far as Zelda II.

There's no indication whatsoever that gender/ethnicity can change amongst reincarnations, in fact, there is proof of the opposite as shown with, again, Link, Ganon and Zelda. Zelda II's Zelda, for example, had a brother, and I'm certain there were other male monarchs in Hyrule, yet none of them are stated to possess the powers Zelda has, Triforce or no Triforce, thus, none of them are reincarnations of Zelda/Hylia. Ganon, too, IS consistently a male Gerudo among his reincarnations and revivals, ergo, the same as Zelda and Ganon can apply for Link; as he's part of that same cycle. In fact, nowhere is it stated nor implied that reincarnation works on TLoZ the same or similar way as in Avatar, pretty much only in the name of Spirit of the Hero, nothing else.

And, of course, options are welcome on a franchise unless they break canon, make all the Three Golden Goddesses male, for example, and you break a part of canon. If a fem!Link is allowed, why not a square Triforce, or retconning the Master Sword into the Master Spear. Lorule and it's Triforce are perfectly viable options as nowhere was it implied that there couldn't be an alternate Hyrule, and it was already inplied that there could be multiple Triforces, one for each timeline.

And yes, female Link does devalue him as a character by turning him into an avatar of the player, a step into character customization; which almost by definition removes the character's own characteristics in order to allow the player to insert themselves into the game.

Dude, part of that was just repeating yourself.
Besides, most of these reincarnation rules are just educated guesses unless there's a game I didn't play that addresses it. There may well be a void in that cycle, but what do we as people know of our gods, or not know? (Fine, it's a fantasy, we can learn all there is to know and lose the mystery that life gives us.)

 

[Pandaxclone2]

You're forgetting one giant problem with all of the above; they are all retcons. Regardless of how the story and timeline is set up now to explain it, it still means that the whole sages thing was retcon after retcon until the timeline was brought in to make order. Ganon is indeed stated to reincarnate and it's a staple that he's done for some time now, but ALBW is odd in this regard. If the Ganon from Oracles died then reincarnated, what happened between then and ALBW where he's somehow been sealed away only for Yuga to summon him? And if he didn't die then there's still the question of how he was sealed. There's gaps in the story.

Ganon has been shown to be either a pig monster or a male Gerudo, sometimes losing the whole Gerudo part entirely and othertimes not. Of course it's implied that it's more of a powerup he does but in the Downfall timeline he consistently shows up as Ganon the beast instead of Ganondorf the Gerudo King. The Golden Goddesses are not human and have no reason to reincarnate at all, yet if they ever wished they could very well choose to change as such. They may not even have a gender as such and may be only called Goddesses for convenience. Hylia is different as she purposefully reincarnated as Zelda, but being a god there might be something more to that. The Hero's Spirit however was nothing more than a mortal, so we can't really assume that gods/demons = human soul in terms of reincarnation if any. Out of all three, the Hero's Spirit is actually the only one that didn't vow to intentionally show up again, only having special treatment because he meant something to Hylia. Now does that mean Zelda and Ganon could be female in one game by that logic? Yes but there's not as much emphasis on them since they are fully fleshed out characters while Link at best is a cookie cutout template character with minor "supposed" personality traits you could gleam from the surrounding characters.

They've already retconned the sword as being sentient and the Triforce pieces being part of a set when for all we could've known from the start there may have been only two parts, or heck, four or more parts. You're overexaggerating the change of a character that has for better or for worse already been changed numerous times over the course of the franchise. Sometimes he's a kid, sometimes he's a farmer; sometimes he holds a bloodline with himself/knights while others aren't even related. Again, WW Link isn't even part of it for crying out loud. The only things that stay consistent with the character is that he's the hero and thus far he's been portrayed as male. With the advent of the Hero's Spirit into play of the franchise it cements one of those and crumbles the foundations of another; while Link is always meant to be the hero, he doesn't have to be male forever and always.

No, unless if they literally gave character customisation or made it like picking Pokemon protagonists, Link's character would not be devalued if he was made female in an installment. This one Link has pink hair in LttP? That devalues his character somehow. Sometimes he's a child while other times he's not? Devalued. Let's devalue the whole Four Links thing while we're at it since that could somehow break the lore as there's only one Link. I could go on with how ridiculous that sounds.

Besides, most of these reincarnation rules are just educated guesses unless there's a game I didn't play that addresses it. There may well be a void in that cycle, but what do we as people know of our gods, or not know? (Fine, it's a fantasy, we can learn all there is to know and lose the mystery that life gives us.)

Exactly; the whole reincarnation thing opens up many possibilities. It doesn't even matter if there's the suggestion of leaning towards something. Unless there's concrete information saying "Zelda reincarnation works like this and only this" then such a thing as a female Link is now possible, despite odds stacked against it. As far as I'm concerned the possibility is all that's needed, and Nintendo has left that door ajar.

 

[MindzEye]

Honestly, I'd argue better if I wasn't myself caught in an argument. And where I come from, it's nowhere near as reasonable as this.

Yeah you could put Link in a dress in that one new game I didn't get, and isn't that about rule-breaking according to these rules?

 

[Pandaxclone2]

Honestly, I'd argue better if I wasn't myself caught in an argument. And where I come from, it's nowhere near as reasonable as this.

Yeah you could put Link in a dress in that one new game I didn't get, and isn't that about rule-breaking according to these rules?

Those Links aren't even real Links according to my sources to that's a rule-breaker as well.

 

[V_Weeb]

No, but it would be cool if they make a game where you play has (toon) zelda and try to save (toon) link or something like that.

 

[Blue Knight]

Of course I have to keep repeating myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's also a difference between a retcon and plain adding lore, there wasn't any indication that there couldn't have any more sacred triangles, nor that they weren't a set of three, for example. Likewise, the very few gaps on history are ground for new installments, they aren't contradicting lore, either.

Let's put this another way, there is "no" indication of Samus' personality over the series, right? Therefore, her portrayal in Other M is perfectly valid and good for the series, right? Likewise, there is supposedly 'no' indication that Link can't be reincarnated as a woman, and therefore it would be valid and right for it to happen?

As for Tri-force heroes, no, those Links aren't actual Links. Only the green on is. And, Cross dressing, uh, I don't see anything wrong about it, he's still himself.

Only way I can plausibly see a game with a "female Link" would be a spin-off with Linkle, where she realizes at the end that she isn't actually a reincarnation of the chosen hero or something.

 

[Pandaxclone2]

And those examples I put there were well enough apart. Retcon for the Sages lore, adding for the Triforce. If anything you could say that the Hero's Spirit is the retcon here but beyond that a female Link is an addition to that retcon.

There's been indication of Samus's personality traits since Super. She doesn't think it's a good idea to be messing around with biological weapons of destruction. In Fusion she accounts story plot that would later be used in Other M and thought highly of Adam, still thinks it's a bad idea messing with biological weapons of destruction. Other M's depiction of her only fails internationally since they tried to make her seems cold and distant with her narrative like the Japanese voiceover, but it doesn't translate well.

Like was said above in previous posts there would be your fair share of people who disagree about the change and those who agree with it (kinda like this argument about whether a female Link should happen or not), and you can't say that what Other M was trying to put in theory was a bad idea; it was just poorly implemented. Likewise you can't really say with certainty that female Link is such an idea until after it's tried. This is probably why we have Linkle in the first place so we can test the waters before diving in.

 

[MindzEye]

Other M was a bad attempt at trying to convey a personality after so much time of just hinting at it. She definitely has one, and it's shown in Nintendo games and the occasional official comic. (There's this really old one I want a piece of.)

But Link... He just never really bore one of his own. Sure he had backstories in each game, but that felt to me more like a way to have him/you fit in the game without having everyone freak out over ya. (Imagine if he just walked in on any one LoZ game. ...Well maybe he did in LoZ, but it'd look weird in LttP or TP.)
In as such, one need not be so quick to undermine the theoretical Linkle, no one's gotten to make a game for her yet. Zelda's games have been so fascinating with their stories of light-worlds, dark-worlds, even trains for goddess' sake! I could readily imagine the Hero's Spirit almost being split apart by a new villain, and boy/girl Links would appear in the story to re-merge with eachother.