The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [93]
Some variation of the following is generally taken to be the story of the original Legend of Zelda game:
Ganon, the King of Evil, breaks free from the Dark World and captures Hyrule’s beloved Princess Zelda. Before she is caught, Zelda manages to shatter the Triforce of Wisdom and scatter its eight pieces throughout Hyrule. Link swears to recover the Triforce pieces and rescue Princess Zelda from Ganon’s clutches. (http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/zelda)
We’re told one myth, The Legend of Zelda, but the game can have divergent interpretations. There is not one Link, but rather an infinite number of ways Link can maneuver, each as diverse as the player pushing his buttons. Each time you play there’s an opportunity to change Link’s relationship to the game, and because the game is not time-dependent, you ultimately decide what kind of sensibility Link will have. The lack of a dependency on time allows for enhanced freedom and feeling of control for the player who projects personality onto the avatar, leading to a stronger association with the character than would normally be found in a game that pushes along the action.
People understand value in different ways. One of these easiest ways to assess a particular value is to ask questions like, “If I had to eat this meal every night for the rest of my life, would I still like it?” or “Will I still love my wife in fifty years?” or “If I had to work at this same job forever, would I still do it?” I asked myself just these kinds of questions as a freshman in college sitting in a boring general education class. I questioned whether I really wanted to read these kinds of books, study with the personalities in these kinds of classes, and take on this kind of career later in life. The answer was a robust no!
This line of reasoning and psychological experimentation is what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposes we undertake, not only for school but for our entire lives. Nietzsche writes:
The greatest weight.—What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!”—Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? (The Gay Science, Vintage, 1974, pp. 273-74)
The Returning Legend
In Zelda we have a similar structure to what Nietzsche calls the “eternal return” or “eternal recurrence.” The game repeats itself each time you turn it on, and you must choose how to play. Each time a player starts the game from the beginning, the same videogame emerges in terms of the inherent structure that makes Zelda, Zelda. The fact that the player can start over or that there is no game clock does not mean that what you do doesn’t matter. If you