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Why I Can Play Zelda for Four Hours Straight

I do believe like Frankl that there’s an existential purpose in every part of life and that the individual is responsible for discovering what that purpose is, realizing his own personal will to meaning. But, for some reason, this always seems so much easier to understand in the game world than in the real world. When I worked at a laundromat regularly folding sixty pounds of towels and sheets for an upscale spa, it was difficult if not impossible to see how that repetitive and not very gratifying act would result in some worthy end goal (unless you count a minimum wage paycheck, which isn’t exactly a big motivation). But still, there is something to it.

Everything we do has some effect on the world around us right? My folding those spa towels probably made someone incredibly happy—maybe the spa customer and my paycheck wasn’t totally unappreciated. Jean-Paul Sartre tells us that “in your most insignificant actions, there is an enormous amount of heroism.”26 This is never truer than in the world of Legend of Zelda. Every stone wall you bomb, every fairy you catch in a bottle (like a child playing with lightning bugs) is one step closer to saving Hyrule. Nearly every action performed in the game, even if it is really just goofing off and postponing going into the dungeon (like I have a tendency to do), can be said to have a greater value. Heck, even gambling which seems to be a totally useless and degraded pastime has significance in Zelda. If you’re lucky and you pick your rupee right, you can get that much closer to buying that quiver of arrows and thereby being ready to save the princess.

The side tasks of the game are endlessly enjoyable because they are not only made important by being essential to the ultimate completion of the game, but they are also immediately rewarding. There’s a serious existential drive to the game, with the need to face challenges and place importance on growth, development and responsibility, but there is also great levity written into the game that softens the seriousness. The musical chime whenever a rupee is found, the heart pieces that Link triumphantly raises above his head in blissful victory.

Much of existentialism concerns itself with the question of freedom, especially since the concept of an all powerful God is abandoned. Viktor Frankl understands freedom in a nuanced sense: “To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions” (p. 131). So, as in the Zelda games perhaps there is a sense of fixed limitations. These fixed limitations may be where the disconnect is between real life theories of existentialism and the storyline of the Zelda games. Link can take a stand towards his conditions but his options are definitely limited. However, I wouldn’t say that has to mean that Zelda is nothing but an escape from the freedom and subsequent responsibilities of real life.

Although people are free, much more free than characters in a fixed storyline, restrictions exist in everyday life just as they do in Zelda. The difference is that these real-life restrictions are more fluid and less transparent than they are in a videogame. Unfortunately, in Zelda, you can’t just beat the shopkeeper over the head and steal the meaty drumstick you need, but rather than grumble about it you can spend the requisite time slashing trees, burning bushes and collecting enough rupees, content in knowing that this is not only necessary, but somehow meaningful. In real life you could hit the shopkeeper over the head, but the legal restrictions and repercussions may give you pause. Perhaps this game, with its narrative limitations and heroic development process, can actually be used as a tool to reflect on the existentialist concept that freedom is accompanied by responsibility.

Just like in Zelda, in life there is quite often a need for going through a long,