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By Root 361 0

“plays as”), the avatar is simultaneously an extension of the player into the gameworld and a second, fictional character who is not the player, whom I call the protagonist. Link is presented to the players as something of a blank slate, allowing them to imbue Link with elements of their own personalities. The fact remains that Link is not the player. Hyrule is a fictional place for the player, while to Link—a fictional character who lives in Hyrule—it’s very real indeed. Link has a childhood the player does not see, and it can be assumed that, when the player is not around, he even talks.27 (The non-player characters of Hyrule do not seem to share Link’s predisposition for silence.)

To interpret a Zelda game as a work of fiction one must imagine Link as a person, and a person whose goals and motivations are not necessarily those of the player. One can assume that Link, the protagonist, has a specific goal in mind: to restore peace and justice to the persistently threatened Hyrule. This is the goal of the narrative, or storyline, the goal that is generally espoused earliest in instruction manuals. It’s an admirable goal, requiring great skill, courage, and personal sacrifice on Link’s part. Moreover, Link’s actions in the course of this quest are, by and large, morally unimpeachable. He kills no human innocents, and (with very rare exceptions) he does not steal, even when doing so might help him save Hyrule. Items won from a boss, for instance, are won in a fair fight rather than through sneaking and trickery. In fact, one might say Link’s greatest sin is breaking an ungodly number of clay pots! Players of the Zelda games intuitively understand why Link is such a resolute white-hat. He has no choice.

Good by Default

More accurately, we, the players, have no choice. The Zelda games offer a fairly linear play experience. Players may go about different objectives in different orders, but many events must happen in a certain order, and most of these events are necessary to complete the game and the accompanying narrative. The selection of things Link can do is quite limited, and players simply aren’t allowed to diverge from the narrative very effectively. Players cannot make Link into a brigand or a despot. Aside from a repeating motif involving killer chickens, Link usually can’t physically hurt anyone or anything that isn’t a direct threat to his safety. Even Link’s in-game muteness aids his perfection—because Link doesn’t talk, the player can’t make him lie!

Link’s good deeds may be morally significant in the game’s narrative, but a story has been written for Link in which he must perform certain actions, and the player may perform only those actions. This is how a player “wins” by the designed rules of the game. This is not to say that players must follow the path exactly. A look at the Zelda players—the ones gathered in online message boards, the ones writing FAQs, and the ones posting videos of their exploits on YouTube—suggests that some recent Zelda games (Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess) allow two distinct modes of play, with radically different approaches to both story and player freedom.

“Being” Link

Everyone plays a game differently of course. I, for example, like to find every secret and explore every inch of the map (yes, overkill, I know). Others tend to rush through and beat the game in record time, then lord this accomplishment over those who are slower. What this means is that gamers have a diversity of play styles. Every player prioritizes certain weapons, tactics and approaches above others. What is significant, however, is that while the way one plays varies the means of achieving a given goal, these styles of play do not change the goal itself. Players who play the game “start to finish,” in a straightforward fashion, are all striving for the same goals: save Zelda, defeat Ganon. They are therefore playing within the sanctioned and expected rules of the game.

This may at first appear to be a depressing thought. You must do what the designers want