The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [100]
The Triforce of Power
Ganondorf was a thief who found the Triforce and used it to fulfill his wildest power fantasies; he became Ganon, a beastly demonic swine. The piece of the Triforce he retained was that of Power. Ganon occupies the role of “Final Boss,” a character who represents the last obstacle as the utmost challenge to Link and the player. He epitomizes the game system as obstacle, death, and greed. Really though, he’s a Macguffin, a rube, a cardboard cut-out designed to make you forget that you’re actually the one pursuing power, only finally achieving it with his death.
The world of Hyrule is a dynamic system, and it can be influenced by a few powers at your disposal once you’ve linked up via controller. The items making up the primary trinity of these powers are the sword, the bomb, and the arrow.
In A Link to the Past the first thing you get is the sword. The sword is a partially circumferential, limited radius vector collision test put out over a short duration and limited only by a brief pause between these tests—in other words, you can swing it all you want but not constantly. You can also add to this pause in order to make the circumference full and add to the power of the swing—that’s the spin move you execute after holding down the attack button.
Secondly, you find the bombs. Bombs are a renewable resource generally gained by vandalizing the homes of innocent people, or by purchase, or by discovering them in treasure chests. Bombs consist of a delayed vector test against a fully circumferential radius equal to the radius of the sword swing but dealing more damage— in other words they blow up real good. Bombs are also key to discovering non-essential secrets, such as caches of (stolen) wealth or power-enhancing items.
Thirdly, you find the arrows. Arrows are a renewable resource like bombs that operate along a straight vector, dealing damage between the amount of a sword swing and a bomb blast. Arrows are required in solving essential puzzles, such as shooting out the eye of a statue in order to open a door.
Many of the supplementary items found in dungeons and required for progress are fractal variations on these three fundamentally distinct but inter-tangled tools of power. The hook shot is the arrow’s bastard child with the sword, the fire wand is the progeny of the arrow and the bomb, the hammer is a combination of the bomb and the sword.
The final battle against Ganon, in A Link to the Past, involves using the fire wand, the sword, and silver arrows in tandem, in that order, in a loop. Once you’ve gotten it, you’re linked ego (Link) has consummated the pleasant Dyad of gameplay, and the Triforce is yours. But what do you do with absolute power?
The Triforce of Wisdom
Zelda is the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. You get the vibe in all the games that even though Hyrule is not a democracy it might as well be, such a benign and wise leader being its female ruler. At least, the people believe in this wisdom, and religion has a lot to do with it.
In the mythology of Hyrule, the world was created by three goddesses, each with a complementary nature, as if the primal forces of the universe. These three left the Triforce as their legacy, their symbolic gift to the universe they made. The mythology of Hyrule is not the only one to bear such a symbol, or such a divine relationship structure.
Catholic Christianity claims that God is made up of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which co-operate as one inextricable being. While Hinduism describes three primal deities: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Many other games use such a structure in their backstories as well, such as the three Prime Evils of the Diablo series, Mephisto, Baal, and Diablo. Literature too—in The Wizard of Oz (the book),