Characters / Survivors of the Calamity: Link & Zelda

The Myth of Link & Zelda: Survivors of the Calamity Main Character Index
Link & Zelda | The Chosen Heroes | Champions | The Guardian Sisters | Ganon and Yiga Clan | Monsters and Mooks of Hyrule | Hylians and Sheikah | Other Races of Hyrule | Other Hyruleans

A page for Master Link and Princess Zelda, the two main protagonists of Survivors of the Calamity.

Beware of unmarked spoilers!

In General

"We also learned of a princess with a sacred power and her appointed knight, chosen by the sword that seals the darkness. It was they who sealed Ganon away using the power of these ancient relics."

— King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Both of them suffer even more than they did originally.
  • Link has a daughter with Mipha, but the Zora are long-lived, meaning that his daughter will significantly outlive him before she even matures. When he wakes up and remembers that he has a daughter, he almost loses it because he understandably assumes that his daughter aged to death while he was asleep. He also notes that he's lost companions and friends in arms to battle.
  • Zelda has all of the angst from the game, and then some. Her final confrontation with her father went further than it did in the game, with Zelda becoming adversarial towards him. At one point, she outright lashes at her father for what she sees as him using her as an image prop. When Link dies in her arms, she doesn't just cry, she completely gives up.
• Adaptational Badass/Took a Level in Badass: Both of them are even stronger and more powerful than they originally were in the source game, though some of it is a result of Character Development during the story.
  • Link has all of his skills from his own lifetime of combat. However, with each Spirit Orb he obtains, he gains Super-Strength that only grows stronger and stronger. That, and he also uses Urbosa's Daybreaker Bracelets which allow him to capture and redirect energy, and Combat Clairvoyance to top it off.
  • Zelda doesn't just have her sealing power, but the powers of the Goddesses, Nayru's Love, Din's Fire, and Farore's Wind. Once she gets control of them, she becomes quite a powerful, if a bit unskilled, combatant capable of fighting alongside Link way before she unlocks her sealing powers.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change:
  • Zelda's hair is straight in the videogame but is curly in this version, thanks to her Race Lift.
  • Link's hair is just past shoulder length and never changes out of the little ponytail until the sequel to the game, save for four helmets that let his hair down. This version of him has long hair, until he gets an Important Haircut that leaves his hair the same length it was in the past, which is much shorter than his hair in the games.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Both have Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold in the game. They're both dark-haired in this fanfic, owing to their Comic-Book Fantasy Casting.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Their romance was only implied in the game. In this fanfic, it's made into an explicitly romantic relationship.
• Age-Gap Romance: The two ended up in a relationship, with him being 34 and her being 16-17 years old.
• Animal Motif: Link's motif is wolves, and Zelda's motif is owls.
• Battle Couple: Once Zelda gets control of her three natural powers, she becomes quite an Action Girl in her own right.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Both of them are described as having thick eyebrows in the narration.
• The Chosen Ones: Link is the chosen wielder of the Wolf Spirit through the Master Sword. Zelda is the chosen wielder of the Owl Spirit containing the power of the entire Triforce. Unlike their cohorts in the four chosen heroes, these two have always been chosen for the purpose of protecting the land.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Link is imagined as appearing like Richard Madden, and Zelda is imagined to look like Yara Shahidi.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Both of them are shown loving and doting on dogs at different points.
• Instant Expert:
  • Link needs very little training to master each Champion's power, though he is shown training with Mipha's trident to practice her water manipulation power. He learns to heal, use lightning, create updrafts, and shield himself without much struggle. Averted with the Wolf Spirit, as it takes him time to fully come into its power even when he fully awakens his connection to it.
  • Once Zelda awakens the Owl Spirit and her sealing power, she needs no training at all to use it. She uses it without any struggle at all, the opposite of the immense effort she put into sparking her powers in the first place. Her three natural powers avert this, since it takes her a long time to learn to control and master them with strength.
• Jack of All Trades: There's a good reason why they were the leaders of the Champions, as they both were very well-balanced fighters compared to the others.
  • Link's the most versatile fighter among the Champions, wielding any weapon and even some powerful magic along with it, though he sticks mostly to his mundane tools with some enhancements.
  • Zelda's the most balanced magical fighter in the team. She perfectly evens out offensive, defensive, and uniquely to her, evasive capabilities in her powers of Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire. Her sheer power goes through the roof once she unlocks her powers and gains the Owl Spirit.
• Kaiju: Zelda and Link can both transform into enormous spectral animals to channel their most powerful abilities. These forms are as large as Dark Beast Ganon.
• Lady and Knight: Zelda is the Bright Lady to Link's White Knight. He is chosen to protect and guard her personally. And they even develop romantic feelings for one another.
• Legacy Character: Both are the latest incarnations of the Princess and Hero of the Skies, the original two that combatted Demise, and have since reincarnated time and time again to fight the curse Demise left behind.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Initially, Link is the better fighter between him and Zelda, as she has no combat skills, and very little control over her powers. However, once she gains control over them (and it's clear that it's not full control just yet), she's his equal, helping to decimate an entire army of monsters. And then during the fight on the Blatchery Plain where has full mastery over her powers, their fight with the Guardians ends with her being unharmed while Link is fatally injured. Finally, she awakens the Owl Spirit within her, making Guardians Cannon Fodder to her, and outright deadlocking Ganon for 100 years. Link only starts catching up once he gains the gifts of the Champions in addition to the Wolf Spirit, as well as Urbosa's bracelets offering him a wider variety of attacks.
• Living Legend: Their heroism across the years makes up much of the lore throughout the story, going as far back as to the Era of the Skies. These two specifically are very well-remembered for helping to stem the destructive Great Calamity 100 years prior.
• Mythical Motifs: Both of them have a parallel characters found in mythology.
  • For Link, it's Odin, specifically, the heroic interpretation of him. Odin was The Beastmaster to Geri and Freki, just as Link is the master of the Wolf Spirit, and both are determined to stop an apocalypse. Furthermore, they both tried to avert a prophesied apocalypse and failed, though Link gets a second chance to do so and succeed. In addition, Link encompasses both negative and positive aspects that Geri and Freki embody. He's prone to extreme anger and violence against the Yiga, but he's also headstrong, brave, and above all loyal to his companions.
  • For Zelda, it's Athena. Zelda is the wisest woman in the land and one of the most powerful magic-wielders, and she's also associated with owls, just as Athena was an undefeated warrior goddess and the goddess of wisdom.
• One-Winged Angel: They're just as capable as their foe Ganon of transforming into powerful entities at the apogee of their power, capable of transforming into powerful spectral animals (less transformation and more of a summon, but the story treats it like a transformation).
• Really 700 Years Old: They're both chronologically 100 years older than they appear to be. They were locked in a stasis for 100 years, keeping their appearances young.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Like in the game, they have this dynamic, but they switch roles throughout.
  • In the flashbacks, Link is the Blue. He's more expressive than in the game, but he's calmer and acts as the emotional support to the very unstable and agonized Zelda.
  • In the present, Zelda is the Blue, especially while Link is regaining his memories. The dynamic is strongest when Link remembers that he has a daughter and nearly falls apart fearing that he outlived her. Zelda quickly reassures and comforts him, telling him that his daughter is still alive and waiting for her.
• Rip Van Winkle: Neither of them aged for 100 years because of Ganon. Link was killed during the Great Calamity and needed to be put in a restorative sleep to save him. Zelda locked herself in a duel with Calamity Ganon to trap him in Hyrule Castle. Link wakes up 100 years later as Ganon starts winning the duel to defeat him permanently.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Link's relationship with Zelda starts off as this, with Link playing "best buds" and Zelda playing "vitriol". Link is her appointed knight, and is completely devoted to her as per his job requirement, and his nobility is endless. Zelda doesn't appreciate being followed around so much. Urbosa is the first to note that it's more because she looks at him as a reminder of her failure to awaken her sealing power. This changes after Link saves her from Yiga Footsoldiers, they warm up to each other enough to enter a romantic relationship.

Link

Master Link Korzem Reshirama

Species: Hylian

Citizenship: Hyrulean

Affiliation(s): The Heroes Four, The Champions

Likeness Based On: Richard Madden

Appearances: Breath of the Wild | Age of Calamity

"I’ve seen my brothers and sisters in arms die at the hands of monsters, friends that I loved. But I wouldn’t change a thing if I could go back."

The Hero of Hyrule, or rather the latest man to carry the name and soul of the Legendary Hero. He's a young man who wakes up in a strange cave with nary a memory aside from his own name. Leaving the cave, he finds himself in the middle of a land devastated by an Ancient Evil from a century before. He sets out on a journey for two purposes: learn who he is in all this, and how he can help to stop the evil infecting the land.

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• Action Dad: He's one to Princess Lochlia of the Zora. They actually fight alongside each other against the Gold Lynel on Ploymus Mountain, and against Ruta.
• Action Hero: The number of times Link gets into a fight numbers in the double digits.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Thanks to his Age Lift, Link was able to develop a more outgoing personality, as he's had time to learn how to deal with the pressures of being Hyrule's chosen hero.
• Age-Gap Romance: Independent from Zelda, Link's romance with Mipha is this. Zora mature slower than Hylians, so Mipha was likely decades old before she met Link, even if at points it didn't look like it.
• Age Lift: He's aged up from 17 in the game to 34 in this fanfic.
• All Your Powers Combined: In two ways, he's a mishmash of all the Champions.
  • As a Hylian, he can use pretty much any weapon efficiently, as Hylians are relatively balanced, specializing in nothing while practicing everything. He can use spears like Mipha, swords and shields like Urbosa, a bow like Revali, and a two-handed weapon like Daruk (though Daruk wields it with one hand).
  • At the beginning, he only has Bullet Time as a power. By the end, he gets the power to heal from Mipha's Grace, the power to summon lightning bolts from Urbosa's Fury, the power to create gusts of wind from Revali's Gale, and the power to shield himself from Daruk's Protection.
• Amicable Exes: With Mipha. They loved each other dearly for their whole lives, but their Mayfly–December Romance meant that they both knew it wasn't healthy for either of them.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Averted. Link was stoic in his younger years, but he grew out of it in his adult years. As a result, he's as emotive and lively as he was just before the Great Calamity, and the amnesia didn't affect his personality.
• Amnesiac Hero: Memories or no, he has no intention of letting anyone be killed under his watch.
• Animal Motif: Link's animals are wolves, Zelda's animals are owls.
• Armor Is Useless: Link never wears armor, only outfits that help him survive the terrain. He's so good at deflecting and dodging attacks that he has no need for armor. Not that it would be any good against the threat of Guardians in the land.
• Back from the Dead: Link actually died during the Great Calamity. The Shrine of Resurrection literally resurrected him from the dead over 100 years.
• Badass Cape: When he wears the Hylian Hood. He actually liked it and bought it on a whim, but he ultimately spends most of the story without it.
• Badass Normal: He's this at first, but gradually becomes an aversion.
  • He starts with only Flurry Rush as his natural power, which couldn't even be activated independently. And he doesn't have the Triforce of Courage, because Zelda has the whole artifact. However, he gains the powers of the Champions and the Wolf Spirit later on and is quite skilled with the magic of the Wolf, and the various Champions' powers are eventually ingrained into his soul as a part of him.
  • The Trial of the Wolf forces him to fight with nothing but the resources he can scrounge up in the rooms he's thrown into.
• Barbarian Long Hair: Thanks to the slumber of restoration lasting 100 years, his hair grew incredibly long. He eventually cuts it all off to look like the man he was before.
• Berserk Button: He hates the Yiga Clan. Any situation involving them or even just mentioning them is enough to get Link's blood boiling, something that Captain Teake notices about him.
• Betty and Veronica: He was the Betty to Kass's teacher who was the Veronica, with Zelda playing Archie. Link was a knight of common birth, while Kass's teacher was a Sheikah court poet. Kass's teacher wasn't fond of Zelda's romantic relationship and attraction towards Link.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Bazz, who Link helped to train to use swords. Bazz expresses gratitude towards Link for this 100 years later.
• Big Damn Heroes: Link comes to the rescue of a couple traveling to Hateno Village from a bunch of Bokoblins. He does the same again to a couple of girls near the Sacred Ground Ruins. And of course, he saves Zelda's life when she's about to be murdered by the Yiga Clan.
• Blade Spam: When he activated Flurry Rush while using a sword, he can move so fast and with such strength, that he literally shreds his foe to pieces before they even can process what's happening.
• Blue Is Heroic: His primary color scheme is blue, owing to his Champion's Tunic that he always wore, and usually wears in the present. It's also the color of the Wolf Spirit, and whenever he channels the Wolf's power, it glows blue.
• Boring, but Practical: While he gains numerous powers over the course of the story, he still usually Fights Like a Normal because he trusts his familiar sword over the relatively unfamiliar powers. At most, he usually uses the Master Sword as a conduit for magic alongside his Daybreaker Bracelets.
• Braids of Action: While he still has long hair, he puts it into a braid, especially while wearing the Sheikah stealth set. He wraps it in a white cloth like Sheik from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Broken Ace: In the past, Link admitted Zelda that the pain of losing friends still weighs him down, added to the fact that his Zora-Hylian daughter would outlive him significantly. These are only exacerbated as he recovers his memories, and thus the pain of losing his former lover, the Champions, and even some random innocent people, weigh him down even more.
• Brought Down to Badass: Link woke up from the slumber of restoration incredibly weakened. However, his skills in combat remained with him, and he made up for the lack of strength with his extreme skill.
• Bullet Time: Unlike the game, this is his explicit power, the Flurry Rush. It automatically channels when he perfectly dodges an attack or draws a bow in midair. From other character's perspectives, he's moving at incredible speed, almost to fast to see.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Link mentions that he remembers people telling him that he bested adults in swordfighting at just four years old. Link himself doesn't really remember much of that clearly, in part because he was just four years old. More than that, he'd been in so many fights before the Calamity that he doesn't remember how he got most of his scars.
• Came Back Wrong: The slumber of restoration robbed his memories and sapped his strength. That being said...
• Came Back Strong: Once he gets the Spirit Orbs, he gains a Super-Strength he didn't have in the past, and after drawing the Master Sword again, has access to all the skills of his ancestors and predecessor heroes. To top it all off, he earns the Wolf Spirit and the powers that come with it, making him almost a Physical God.
• Cassandra Truth: The Gerudo and the Rito don't believe Link when he first claims to be the Hylian Champions from 100 years ago. The Gerudo think he's lying, and the Rito logically conclude that he's a descendant. Both races come around when they see that Link has the Sheikah Slate and the Master Sword, and in the case of the Rito knows that Revali had a sister named Takki.
• Cast from Lifespan: Drawing the Master Sword is so agonizing to him that it seemed to be actively trying to kill him. It did this to his physical body, and his soul, but both were restored to full strength once the blade was out of the ground.
• Celibate Hero: The only relationships he's ever had, past or present, are with Zelda and Mipha. Other than that, he's expressed very little interest in any other characters, romantically or sexually.
• The Champion: Literally. He's titled the Hylian Champion, essentially marking him as the greatest warrior in all the land. He's also Zelda's Champion, being the one chosen to guard her. Their Lady and Knight relationship is the cornerstone of the story and a huge part of Link's life.
• Character Development: At the very beginning, he was a largely withdrawn person as a result of having no memories besides his name. He had an expressed personality, but as he regains his memories, he becomes more and more expressive until he develops back into the man he was 100 years prior.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Averted, unlike his game counterpart. His Flurry Rush ability is explicitly supernatural, serving as his Champion's power, akin to the other Champions' own powers.
• Chick Magnet: Three different women all develop some sort of romantic feelings for him. Paya for instance develops a crush that she mistakes for being ill. Princess Mipha was his lover at one time, and they had a daughter, but their relationship ended not long after. Zelda and Link had a romantic relationship right before the Great Calamity struck. Not to mention numerous other women who flirt with him throughout his journey.
• Childhood Friend Romance: He had one with Mipha, who was his childhood friend. They had a relationship when he was a teenager that resulted in Lochlia. However, reality kicked in because of the fact that Mipha would drastically outlive him, and they ended their relationship amicably.
• Childhood Friends: Link spent some of his youth in Zora's Domain, and he was friends with several young Zora, especially Mipha and Bazz. Lochlia doesn't count because he's her father. Either way, this results in the adults lacking any animosity towards him, unlike the elders.
• Child Prodigy: At four years old, he could best adults in combat.
• Child Soldier: He was strong enough to fight alongside and even defeat grown men at the age of four.
• Chivalrous Pervert: During one of the memories where Zelda tries to feed Link a toad, Link doesn't wear a shirt. He notices that she's sneaking some glances and pictures of him, and he evens the playing field by stealing some glances at her curvaceous figure.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: From the very first time he saw Calamity Ganon (after waking up without any memories), his first impulse is to declare that he will fight the monster.
• Combat Aestheticist: Like Revali, he sees combat as an art form. And Link is willing to learn and use any and all available utensils. In his words, the greatest sculptor will always lose a painting contest.
• Combat Pragmatist: He might be a knight and a warrior, but in a fight, he fights dirty. He's fond of eye strikes, decapitation, and stealth. As he gains more and more powers, while he sticks to familiar tactics, he makes full use of these new powers. Combat is an art, and Link knows how to use most of combat artists' tools.
• Commonality Connection: Link and Zelda share quite a few things, including pressure from their respective positions. Link's Age Lift means that he figured out a way to get through it, but Zelda points out that in royalty, image is everything. Nonetheless, they bond through this commonality. Not just this one, but through loss. Zelda lost her mother, and Link lost numerous friends in combat.
• The Confidant: To a few characters.
  • For Zelda, he was someone she could not just confide in, but could empathize with. This is especially noticeable during the memory in West Necluda, where they have a conversation about the nature of their position and the pressures that come with it.
  • For Riju, Link immediately spots an apt parallel between Riju and Zelda. He sees Riju's insecurities and remembers how Zelda went through the same thing. He helps Riju through her insecurities as they ready to battle Naboris, especially because Riju feels so incompetent as a leader.
  • At one point, Paya confides in Link about an old friend she had named Melonie who had disappeared one day and no one knew what happened to her. She does this right after Link executes a Yiga woman in Hateno Village, and Paya had recognized the Yiga's voice as that of Melonie. He also serves as this to her when she asks him to stay with her after her family's heirloom was stolen.
• Cool Sword: The Master Sword, a strong blade in its own right and a perfect conduit for the magic and power he obtains throughout the story. He even gets a chance to swing around the Scimitar of the Seven, but doesn't use it as his weapon of choice.
• Covered with Scars: He had scars all over his body even before the Great Calamity from his years of fighting.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: The narration mentions how the light outside the Shrine of Resurrection was blinding when it first opened up.
• Deadpan Snarker: By the time Link gets to Medoh, he starts lampshading the strange intricacies of the Divine Beasts, sarcastically asking who designed these things so weirdly.
• Death of Personality: Zig-Zagged. Link's heroic personality is intact after his slumber, but he's noticeably more withdrawn after waking up, until he starts gaining his memories back, at which point he starts becoming more like the charismatic personable man he was 100 years prior.
• Dented Iron: He can barely even stand up when he originally wakes up from the Shrine of Resurrection, and he hardly has any strength. It's not until he gets Spirit Orbs that he starts to recover his strength.
• Determinator: Naturally, as this is a version of the famous Link. Being near-death fighting an armada of Guardians does nothing to stop him from trying to protect Zelda. Neither does being stripped to his underwear, and his strength sapped to almost nothing during his various trials.
• Disappeared Dad: Just like in the game, Link's father is mentioned to be a knight with Link having followed in his footsteps, but he's never seen in person and is dead by the time of the present because of 100 years passing, if he was alive to see the Calamity. He's also one to his own daughter Lochlia, but this wasn't by choice. At first, this was because Link and Mipha knew that she would face strife for being half-Hylian, and thus they didn't spend a lot of time together. The other reason for this was because he was in the Shrine of Resurrection.
• Disguised in Drag: He has to dress up in a Gerudo Vai outfit to sneak into the town. A few characters are perceptive enough to see through it. He no longer needs to wear it as he's permitted to enter the town per Riju's decree.
• Elemental Weapon: He can get these, but aside from elemental arrows, he mostly uses the elemental weapons to shield himself from high and low temperature environments.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He starts the story with literally nothing, no clothes and no strength. He ends with the Champion's powers, the Master Sword, and the Wolf Spirit, making him more powerful than nearly anyone else in the land.
• Experienced Protagonist: Just like in the game, he's an experienced knight born into a family of knights right from the get-go, and had been using the Master Sword for years. He's even more experienced than in the game because of his Age Lift.
• Expy: His fighting style of sword, shield, speed, strength and magic bracelets make him a Spear Counterpart to Wonder Woman.
• Family Man: Part of his agony over being a parent to Lochlia is that he won't live long enough to see many of her milestones. Even though he's happy to see her alive, he still has deep regrets about missing so many things as a father. He expresses to his diary hope that Zelda will want a family when it's all over so that he could finally be a proper father.
• Fights Like a Normal: Even with his vast array of powers, in smaller scale fights, he usually defaults to his combat and sword abilities,
• Flash Step: When he accesses Flurry Rush, other characters see him moving so fast that they can't see him.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Mipha crafted Zora Armor for Link in the hopes that one day he would find his way back to her. She eventually realized that moving on from Link was healthy for her, and was planning on gifting it to him as a parting present.
• Good Is Not Soft: Link is a sweet man, but may the gods have mercy on your soul if you're a Yiga Clan member. After Leena is murdered right under his nose, and after seeing their torture chambers, Link grows to hate them with a viciousness, and tears through them with a sadistic vengeance.
• Good Parents: Even though Mipha and Link not being together meant he wasn't there for Lochlia as much as they would've liked, it's clear from the few scenes that young Lochlia and Link share that he's nothing but a good parent to her. Lochlia resents him for the distance at first, but after she personally realizes why her parents couldn't be together, she sees her father with nothing but reverence and fondness.
• Hand Blast: From his wrists, but nonetheless, the Daybreaker Bracelets allow him to block and redirect energy absorbed from deflected attacks by clashing them together. This usually occurs in a laser-like form.
• The Hero: Link is The Chosen One, and carries the Master Sword, so this is unsurprising.
• The Hero Dies: Link actually dies on the Blatchery Plain from the onslaught of Guardians. For a time, Hyrule's hero was gone, even if he was resurrected, he was in fact dead.
• Heroic Lineage: He's descended from knights. In fact, Zelda wonders if he suffers the pressure of the lineage just like she suffers from hers. It's later revealed that the Heroes of the Skies, Time, and Twilight are also his direct ancestors.
• Heroic Mime: Fully averted. Link has an expressed personality, has extensive dialogue with other characters, and has a character arc that largely finishes in Chapter 15.
• Heroic RRoD: Link is beat up by Calamity Ganon and the Guardians he enslaved to the point that he actually dies after fighting off an entire flood of Guardians. If Zelda hadn't unlocked her sealing power, he would have been dead permanently.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Downplayed with the Zora. The elderly Zora are very much not fond of Link, blaming him for Mipha's death. The adults who were children at the time are quite fond of him.
• He's All Grown Up: To Mipha. They met when he was a child. As a Zora, she was already at a young adult age. When they met again when he was a teenager, she fell in love with him.
• He's Back!: In Chapter 15, Link cuts off the Barbarian Long Hair he had up until then. Combined with him shaving, his tunic, and the fact that he has the Master Sword, it's the final symbolic step that indicates that the hero of Hyrule has truly returned.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Link has a moment where he wonders this, after sadistically tearing apart the Yiga Clan members in the hideout. When Buliara speaks with him, she reassures him that he did nothing wrong, because unlike the general monsters of Hyrule, they're genuinely evil and the world is better without them. This helps Link come around, and he eventually defies this trope with another Yiga member accuses him of it.
• Horse Archer: He's capable of this, but only does it twice, once as a unique variant. The first is a variant, where he surfs across the desert sand with Kali and fires at Naboris's feet. The second time is with Epona against Dark Beast Ganon...after Zelda returns Kali to her true form as Epona.
• Hot Consort: Mipha was hoping that Link would be this to her, as they had a relationship that they amicably ended because of the difference in lifespan between them. She eventually realized that Link was going to become this to Zelda, and decided to accept it and move on.
• Humble Hero: While he's fine with being paid for some exchange in help, he nevertheless doesn't ask for much, nor does he see the need to gloat about who he is. He just states it, and if they don't believe him, he doesn't care. He's humble enough to give most of the gems that were granted to him from Tarrey Town to Purah's research lab.
• Important Haircut: He starts with very long hair and a thick beard. After he regains most of his memories, he cuts his hair and shaves, making himself look like he did 100 years prior.
• Improbable Weapon User: As a warrior, he uses absolutely anything he can get his hands on to fight. He uses branches, woodcutting axes, and numerous other weapon types.
• Instant Runes: The Sheikah Slate's Runes perform various tasks. The Sheikah Plates have them too. The ending implies that Zelda will come to use these as her primary weapon in the sequel.
  • Magnesis manipulates metallic objects, and by that, it's anything made of metal.
  • Remote Bombs blow things apart with pure kinetic energy. Spherical Bombs roll down slopes, and Cubic Bombs remain in place.
  • Cryonis creates columns of ice across any body of water to use as platforms, or as shields.
  • Stasis freezes time on a single object or enemy. With objects, Link can strike them over and over to store kinetic energy in them. With enemies, the frozen enemies give him a chance to attack while they are helpless to defend themselves.
  • Camera takes pictures. It's the only rune the Sheikah Slate had before the Great Calamity, and Zelda made extensive use of it, which is why it was able to help Link during his quest to find his memories.
  • Master Cycle Zero summons a horse-shaped motorcycle designed after Divine Beast Vah Eponia that Link can ride. He never actually rides it, though.
• Interspecies Friendship: He was close friends with several young Zora, and especially Bazz. The adult Bazz is his son-in-law and the father of Link's grandchildren. He and Daruk are also long-time friends, as Daruk was the one who encouraged Link to enter a relationship with Mipha.
• Interspecies Romance: Mipha and Link had a romantic relationship when Link was a teenager. Their relationship ended on amicable terms because they knew that the life-span difference wouldn't turn out well for their daughter.
• In the Hood: He wears the caped Hylian Hood. He doesn't wear it for very long, and instead sticks with trusty trousers and his blue tunic.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He doesn't think so. He never uses a Sheikah weapon throughout the whole story.
• King in the Mountain: Most of Hyrule wrongly thought him dead when in truth, he was locked away in the Shrine of Resurrection to save him before it was too late.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Downplayed compared to the game. He never steals from stores, towns, or stables, but he's very much willing to help himself to whatever he finds at a monster encampment.
• Late to the Tragedy: Subverted. He seems to have slept through the Great Calamity, but he was truly around during that time, and was present when Calamity Ganon rose from the ground. He was explicitly killed by the Guardians, and had to be resurrected in the Shrine of Resurrection.
• Leave No Survivors: He's not fond of leaving anyone or anything alive in his wake. Monsters and Yiga alike, but especially the Yiga.
• Legacy of Service: He's part of a long line of knights, as his father was a member of the royal guard. Among his other ancestors include the Heroes of the Skies, Time, and Twilight.
• Love Triangle: He's involved in three. Mipha and Zelda were both in love with him, and he actually reciprocated both of them. He was with Mipha during his teen years and had a daughter with her, but they ended it because of the unhealthy nature of the Mayfly–December Romance. He ends up in a relationship with Zelda, which fulfils the other two triangles. The first is with Kass's teacher, and the second is with Paya who develops a crush on Link.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: His default shield 100 years ago was a Hylian Shield. He uses a few other shields before he finally finds another Hylian Shield in Hyrule Castle. He contemplates using Urbosa's Daybreaker, but decides not to. He uses his shield in tandem with Urbosa's Daybreaker Bracelets.
• Made of Indestructium: The Daybreaker Bracelets are completely invulnerable. They're blessed with a simple but unique and powerful magic that allows the bracelets to absorb energy from attacks and store them to redirect it.
• Made of Iron: Averted at first. He becomes realistically wounded early on, but various circumstances save him, such as a fairy potion given to him by a woman he saved. As he gathers more Spirit Orbs, his durability increases to supernatural levels, playing this straight, but he still gets wounded by bladed and Sheikah technology weapons. When this happens, it's Mipha's Grace that saves him.
• Magic Knight: Aside from magitek in the form of ancient arrows and the Sheikah Slate, he obtains the power of the Wolf Spirit and gains access to a vast array of magical powers.
• Magikarp Power: He starts out the story barely able to even stand up or even climb out of the Shrine of Resurrection. He grows to become as powerful as a god after finding the shrines, freeing the Divine Beasts, and completing the Trial of the Wolf.
• Magitek: The one item he has with him the entire time is the Sheikah Slate, a mystical tablet with Instant Runes that he can use throughout his journey. Aside from them, he even gets a map of Hyrule and a warp function that lets him instantly travel across Hyrule.
• Master Swordsman: He was one for almost 30 years before the Great Calamity happened. He was an elite knight in the royal guard for much of his life, and his combat and skill is almost literally embedded in his soul and mind. Lack of memories does nothing to inhibit his skills in a fight. It's no wonder that he was already the chosen wielder of the Master Sword.
• McNinja: Link dons this outfit a couple of times. He wears the outfit in combat several times to sneak up on enemies, and he wears the outfit during his invasion of the Yiga Clan's hideout. It helps him to completely massacre everyone in the hideout.
• Mr. Fanservice: Link is reimagined as a man who looks like Richard Madden. Anyone who's seen him in any movies or shows knows that he's quite easy on the eyes.
• Multi-Melee Master: He wields swords, axes, spears, two-handed weapons, and even branches in a fight.
• Multi-Ranged Master: He wields bows and elemental magic rods without a struggle. He doesn't struggle adapting the Wolf's powers and Urbosa's Fury into his moveset either.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: His muscular build means that as he regains his strength, he's more than capable of pushing blades through flesh and kicking enemies away. As he gains the Spirit Orbs, however...
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He gains an incredible Super-Strength that allows him to wield the Boulder Breaker, Daruk's weapon, with ease, which is normally impossible for a Hylian.
• Named by the Adaptation: He was never given a surname or even a middle name in any of the games.
• Nature Hero: He traverses the wilderness of a post-apocalyptic Hyrule to save what remains of the kingdom, gathering weapons and resources. Upon drawing the Master Sword, Fi explicitly calls him the Hero of the Wild.
• Nice Guy: He's noble and courageous, and is absolutely dedicated to the fight against Ganon.
• No Sympathy: From elderly Zora who blame him for Mipha's death. Most of them get better, though. Link himself has no sympathy for the Yiga Clan, and in fact, enjoys wiping them out.
• Older Than They Look: Link retains his appearance as a 34-year-old man, but he's actually 134 years old thanks to the Shrine of Resurrection. It leads to a moment with Lochlia where he draws the "I'm the parent" card, and outright says that he's 134 years old, versus her "meager" 115 years.
• One-Man Army: Downplayed compared to the game. The scene where there were numerous dead monsters with Zelda bandaging his injury is changed. Instead of it being only Link, there are signs that Zelda herself fought alongside him, but even so, Link still was able to take down numerous monsters on his own, though she still admonished him for being a bit reckless. In the last memory on the Blatchery Plain, Link and Zelda end up separated and both take down a vast horde of Guardians, but it proves too much for Link who doesn't have magic at that point like Zelda.
• Only Mostly Dead: Averted. Link actually did in fact die on the Blatchery Plain during the Great Calamity. Fi had to come to the rescue and tell Zelda that there was still hope to save him. So she had Purah and Robbie take him to the Shrine of Resurrection, where it took 100 years to bring him back.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's a really nice guy. So the way he gets furious and hateful and just the mention of the Yiga signals just how much their actions have affected him. Captain Teake even notices this in Link and comments on it.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: After the Yiga murder an innocent person right in his vicinity, Link grows to viciously hate them, and whenever he encounters them, he will kill them, and doesn't let any of them live.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Downplayed compared to the game. He's imagined as being played by the 5'10" Richard Madden. However, he's still far smaller than many of the other races, yet has a Super-Strength that rivals that of the enormous Gorons, and is a powerful Army of One.
• Praetorian Guard: His bloodline has served the kingdom for years, and because he holds the Master Sword, he's specifically designated as Zelda's personal guard. Even more than in the game, because Link's bloodline includes three of Hyrule's previous heroes.
• Prongs of Poseidon: Link is given Mipha's Lightscale Trident. He briefly uses it to manipulate water outside his home, but chooses to leave it in his home as a memento of her.
• The Protagonist: He's the lead character, and while Zelda is just as important as he is, he grows through significant Character Development of his own, and it really follows his journey to save the people he loves.
• Quest for Identity: While he knows his own name and never forgot that, he remembered nothing about his old life. The first fourteen chapters consist of him seeking out his life from before the Calamity, and while he gets most of his memories back, it's not until near the end that he finally regains all his memories of his life from before.
• Real Men Can Cook: Before the action starts picking up later in the story, Link is shown in several scenes cooking food for himself in his home.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Just like in the game, King Rhoam in the guise of the Old Man explains that 100 years ago, he fell in combat and was placed in the Shrine of Resurrection to heal so that he may fight again.
• Secret-Keeper: Link chooses to keep Dorian's secret, acknowledging that he has truly abandoned his Yiga Clan roots. It's noticeable because of how hateful he is of the Yiga at this point.
• Shield Bash: He inherits this ability from the game. He uses it extensively to counter enemy attacks, and especially to reflect the powerful beams from Guardians early on in the story.
• Shield Surf: When Kali is pulling him across the sand, he uses his shield to slide across the sand. He never does this anywhere else.
• Shameless Fanservice Guy: During the "Silent Princess" memory's re-creation in this story, Link is completely topless in the grass...and is completely aware of Zelda indulging in some Female Gaze.
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: Subverted. While he doesn't remember it at first, he was there during the Calamity, and ended up being fatally injured as a result of it. The Shrine of Resurrection was the only thing that saved him.
• Spectacular Spinning: Link is more than capable of this. In fact, he gains access to his ancestor's skills and abilities, including the Hero of Twilight's Great Spin, which he uses numerous times to vanquish all kinds of monsters.
• Spell Blade: The Master Sword is capable of being used as this, as is the Scimitar of the Seven, though Link chooses the former.
• The Stoic: Mostly averted, but Link's backstory says he was once this before growing out of it in his adulthood years.
• Strong and Skilled: As he gains the Champion's powers, and the Wolf Spirit, he retains his combat skills, but now has incredible power and magic to back them up.
• Super-Reflexes: His Flurry Rush power allow him to shred enemies to pieces with incredibly speed, or to unleash a barrage of arrows in midair. From the perspective of other characters, he's moving or shooting arrows with Super-Speed.
• Super-Strength: As he gathers Spirit Orbs and vanquishes the Blights, Hylia grants Link more and more strength until he's stronger than even the Gorons.
• Sword Beam: On a few occasions, Link unleashes beams of energy out of his sword. It's actually name-dropped in the narration during Link's fight with Master Kohga.
• Take Up My Sword: Each time he frees a Divine Beast, he's rewarded by each leader the weapons of the fallen Champions. Link receives Mipha's Lightscale Trident from King Dorephan, Urbosa's Scimitar of the Seven and Daybreaker from Riju, Revali's Great Eagle Bow from Kaneli, and Daruk's Boulder Breaker from Bludo. During the Yiga War, Link does this via his four grandchildren, having them bring these items to the new heroes. Riju uses the Daybreaker as her shield to surf on, Buliara uses the Scimitar of the Seven, Lochlia uses her mother's Lightscale Trident, Yunobo uses the Boulder Breaker, and Teba uses the Great Eagle Bow. All of them choose to relinquish the items back to Link so that they may forge their own paths as Champions.
• Tragic Keepsake: Link keeps the Champions' various weapons as keepsakes on his wall, honoring them with a place in his heart and home.
• Trick Arrow: Link can use normal, ice, fire, shock, bomb, and ancient arrows. Zelda grants him the Bow of Light and by default the Arrows of Light in the final battle.
• The Unfettered: A heroic on-off variant. He's a Nice Guy who holds himself to a moral code in his quest to destroy Calamity Ganon...unless the Yiga Clan is involved. Link comes to hate them and gains a bloodlust against them after seeing how monstrous they are. He takes hostages for information, kills said hostages when they answer him, kills them in the most gruesome and sadistic ways, and outright exterminates everyone in the hideout out of vengeance. At first he feels disturbed, but after a pep talk from Buliara, he no longer does. If the Yiga are involved, he holds nothing back against them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: His relationship with Revali, at least in the present, has shades of this. Revali is the vitriolic one in the flashbacks, clearly unhappy playing supporter to Link. However, in the present, he's shown being close enough with Link to engage in snark with him about the strange designs of the Divine Beast. Revali also seems more inclined towards at least begrudging respect to him.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In the Gerudo Desert, Link wears a Desert Voe set, which exposes the majority of his chest. Riju is interested when he sees her, but not because of attraction (she's only 13), but because she's never seen a man before.
• Weak, but Skilled: Initially, he's no more durable than a regular human, but he has incredible skills and combat training that help him stay alive, to the point where he's a complete Glass Cannon. He eventually averts this as the story progresses.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: His eyes are described as an ocean blue, and many times in the flashbacks, Zelda finds herself gazing into them endlessly. The narration mentions that women are even envious of his beautiful eyes and eyelashes. Lochlia inherited hers from him.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Link has to dress as a Gerudo vai in order to infiltrate Gerudo Town. It's unclear if he's done this before as in the game.
• With This Herring: Link is set off on his quest to destroy Ganon...with nothing but a few clothes and the Sheikah Slate.
• You Don't Look Like You: Like in the game, Link doesn't wear a green tunic like his predecessors. In fact, when he obtains it, he still chooses not to wear it.

Zelda

Princess Zelda Bosphoramus Hyrule

Species: Hylian

Citizenship: Hyrulean

Affiliation(s): The Heroes Four, The Champions

Likeness Based On: Yara Shahidi

Appearances: Breath of the Wild | Age of Calamity

"I may not have the power to seal him away, but I will fight for Hyrule in any way I can!"

The princess of the fallen Hyrule. It is she who awakens Link from his restorative slumber, and she's the one holding Calamity Ganon prisoner in Hyrule Castle. As Link journeys across Hyrule, he recovers more and more of his life, much of which he shared with her.

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• Action Girl: Played straighter than in the game. While she still lacks combat prowess, she has more powers, holding Nayru's Love, Din's Fire, and Farore's Wind. Once she gains control of these powers, she's capable of fighting alongside Link. And once she activates her sealing power and the Owl Spirit, she singlehandedly takes down a Guardian army before heading to Hyrule Castle to seal Calamity Ganon in a duel for 100 years. And she's the one who frees Ganondorf from Demise's curse.
• Adventure Archaeologist: Zelda travels all over Hyrule, visiting ruins and examining ancient Sheikah technology. As she masters her natural three powers, she becomes much more proficient in combat, and becomes as much a fighter as a scholar.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Little bird", given to her by her mother and Urbosa.
• All for Nothing: She cries out and laments her failure to activate her sealing power. Thankfully, she unlocks her power at the eleventh hour, allowing her to at least buy enough time for Link to heal so that they can take down Ganon.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's a dark-skinned woman with equally dark hair, and she's very cold and distant towards Link at first. She eventually warms up to him.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear if Zelda's powers activated through the power of her love for Link and finally being herself, or if it was the goddesses themselves who held back her power, because the goddesses had set up a Long Game to ensure the end of Demise's ancient curse.
• Badass Adorable: She's a burgeoning Sheikah technology scholar who has Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire, and once she gets control of them, she becomes a veritable combatant in her own right. Unlocking her sealing power and the Owl Spirit gives her the power to lock an Ancient Evil Eldritch Abomination in Hyrule Castle for 100 continuous years.
• Badass Bookworm: She has all the nerdery and scholarly inclinations as the game's version of Zelda, and as usual for the character of Zelda in general. The badass part is upgraded, with Zelda having the three signature Golden Goddess powers that she has in the Smash series.
• Badass in Distress: After 100 years of dueling Ganon nonstop, he starts to overpower her. She calls in Link for backup.
• Barrier Maiden: Her entire purpose is to ensure that Calamity Ganon would be sealed away. With the plan's failure, she was able to do the next best thing and locked him in Hyrule Castle for 100 years.
• Benevolent Mage Ruler: She would have become the ruling Queen of Hyrule had the Calamity not have happened. It was a natural trait among the women of her family to wield great amounts of magic power.
• Be Yourself: As in the original game, this is the implied reason that she fails to unlock her power in time. At one point, she even postulates to Link that this may not be her ultimate purpose in life, as her wishes clash with what destiny says is her duty. Her father also orders her to stop trying to be a scholar and force her to directly follow her ancestresses' footsteps. But this is all thrown for a loop when it's revealed that the Great Calamity was supposed to happen, leaving it unclear if this was the reason why she couldn't use it or was deliberately prevented from unlocking her power.
• Big Good: She was the leader of the Champions, and she lead the research into Sheikah technology, all the way from the Divine Beasts to the individual Guardians to the Sheikah Slate and the Shrine of Resurrection. She subsequently keeps Ganon locked in Hyrule Castle to give Link time to heal. 100 years later, most of the characters practically worship her for what she's done to help Hyrule.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Her seventeenth birthday is also the most traumatic day of her life. To boot, she goes to the Spring of Wisdom and fails to unlock her powers there. Afterwards, Calamity Ganon awakens from its sleep, it corrupts the Divine Beasts and the Guardians, the Champions are all killed, Link is killed (but thankfully saved), her father is killed, and much of her kingdom is destroyed.
  • Age of Calamity reveals that her sixteenth birthday wasn't much better. The day she turned sixteen, a massive army of monsters attacked her home.
• Bittersweet 17: Her seventeenth birthday is spent praying in a ritual at the Spring of Wisdom, as seventeen is the minimum age someone is allowed to set foot on the mountain.
• Black and Nerdy: She's reimagined as a black girl in this fanfic, and she retains all of her scholarly inclinations.
• Black Magician Girl: Once she gains control of her powers, she is capable of dishing out a good amount of damage. All three of her powers have offensive power and capabilities, even though Farore's Wind and Nayru's Love focus on mobility and defense respectively.
• Blow You Away: Farore's Wind allows Zelda to teleport, but it can be used offensively as well, as the power still harnesses the power of mystical winds.
• Blue Blood: She's the princess of Hyrule, and the narration describes her voice as posh, though it also indicates that she loses some of the formal posh nature when she's alone with someone she's familiar with.
• Bodyguard Crush: As she grows closer to Link, she becomes attracted to Link, and eventually enters a romantic relationship with her.
• Brainy Brunette: She's a very academic girl with dark hair, owing to her
• Break the Cutie: The entirety of one memory is spent with her screaming in agony over the complete failure of all her efforts to prevent Hyrule's fall were All for Nothing.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: When she calls her father out on his distant parenting, she establishes how angry and fed up she is with him by addressing him by his first name, which is very disrespectful especially among royalty.
• Calling the Old Man Out: She calls out her father on his distant parenting style, and how he never really was a father to her after the death of her mother. Instead of trying to help Zelda, he only pushed her into trying to unlock her powers. She also calls him out on how he constantly makes her feel like she's nothing more than a prop to further the image of a family.
• Character Development: She begins as cold and distant towards Link, envious of what she sees as easy success compared to her. But she gradually warms up to him as they bond over their shared struggles.
• Cluster F-Bomb: She devolves into this as she rants about her failures and the utter pointlessness of even trying to combat the Calamity. Given how well-spoken she is, it's incredibly jarring to hear her utter such vulgarity.
• Color-Coded Elements: Nayru's Love is blue, Din's Fire is red, and Farore's Wind is green.
• Composite Character: The fanfic adapts a version of Zelda that composites the seriousness about Hyrule's fate from Twilight Princess, the close relationship with Link from Skyward Sword, and the development of said relationship going through clashes and rough patches from Wind Waker. This fanfic also adapts some of Zelda's nature from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, where she's more active in combat.
• Covered in Mud: As the Great Calamity progressively gets worse and worse and worse, Zelda and Link both get covered in more and more filth and mud.
• Crisis of Faith: At the Spring of Power, her stress over her inability to activate her sealing power despite her prayers and efforts gets to her, and she lashes out at Hylia. She does it again when the Great Calamity strikes.
• Cry into Chest: When the Great Calamity strikes killing her father, the Champions, and much of the kingdom, Zelda breaks down in Link's arms, loudly wailing.
• Determinator: She has offensive magic powers, but she's not a trained fighter nor does she have much experience in combat. Nonetheless, she's still as determined as ever to save Hyrule. She saved Link from permanent death by activating her powers and shutting down every Guardian in the Blatchery Plain. She then spent 100 continuous years keeping Ganon locked in Hyrule Castle. She finally deals the final blow, freeing Ganondorf's soul from the curse, accomplishing a feat none of her predecessors could do.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: A classic instance. She starts off haughty, jealous, and cold towards Link. She eventually grows close to him, enough that she entered a romantic affair with him.
• Deuteragonist: The story follows Link, but the flashbacks are all from her perspective, detailing her own development and her relationships with the Champions, with Link, and her father. She's also the one who wakes up Link to bring him in as backup for her.
• Die or Fly: It's down to the wire, where she's the sole capable fighter to stand against a flood of Guardians near Fort Hateno. She throws herself in front of Link, intending to use her three powers to help save him from death but this triggers her sealing power, giving her access to the divine Owl Spirit.
• Driven to Suicide: In the final memory sequence, Zelda literally gives up after Link dies, and just waits to die with him, until Fi intervenes.
• Emotional Powers: Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire all are weak an unstable, reflecting her mental and emotional instability. In one memory when her anger overcomes her, the powers explode violently outward, shocking even her. They grow more stable the more Link pulls her out of her unhealthy mindset.
• Ermine Cape Effect: As in the game, Zelda has different outfits for specific purposes. She has a blue travel outfit that she wears most of the time, a winterized outfit when she goes to recruit Revali, a white ceremonial dress she wears for divine rituals, and a formal royal outfit that she wears for royal ceremonies. She wears the royal outfit the least, and never wears it in combat.
• Flash Step: She can use Farore's Wind to warp, which she uses as an evasive maneuver.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: She doesn't disregard the existence of the goddesses, but because of her inclination towards technology, reason, and scholarly pursuits, she comes to doubt that blind faith was the key to unlocking her power. The fact that her various ritual pursuits in attempt to unlock her power repeatedly fail don't help. This is to the dismay of her devoted father, especially since her predecessors were able to do this comparably easy. It's implied that her doubt and low self-esteem were what was holding her back but this is questionable given that the Goddesses were manipulating things to ensure that the Great Calamity would happen as part of a scheme to end Demise's curse.
• Flower Motif: The Silent Princess is basically Zelda in flower form. It's a rare gorgeous flower that can't be grown in a controlled environment, just as Zelda's power can't thrive in her controlled life. Except, unlike in the game, the goddesses themselves may have been the ones keeping Zelda's powers from thriving as part of their long-running scheme to destroy Demise's curse once and for all.
• Foil: To Mipha. In Zelda's eyes, Mipha has everything that Zelda could want: control of her powers, confidence, the respect of her people, and the genuine care and love of her family. Zelda doesn't realize that she has something Mipha wants: Link's love and heart. Mipha notices this, and attempts to advise Zelda that her powers may activated through her love for Link. And she was right, at least it seems like it.
• Foreshadowing: The flashback near Death Mountain consists of the aftermath of a fight between Link and Zelda against a horde of powerful monsters. Zelda is unharmed, but Link is hurt, and she warns him that he can't push himself past his limits. This occurs on a greater scale in the final memory, where Link and Zelda's fight against the horde of Guardians near Fort Hateno leaves Zelda relatively unharmed, but kills Link.
• Freudian Excuse: Her mental issues appear to manifest from three significant causes. The first is the death of her mother when she was barely seven years old, a wound that still hurts her, and something that strained her relationship with her father. The second one is her father pushing her away from her true passion for studying Sheikah technology, and giving her massive strife and pressure for supposedly being unable to live up to her ancestresses. The final one is her anger towards her father for making her feel like she's not a person, but a prop for image, something that has made her feel resentment towards her father that has only worsened over the years.
• Gemstone Assault: She uses Nayru's Love in defensive and offensive ways. It acts as a simple crystalline barrier, but she can shatter the crystal and produce a Flechette Storm of sharp crystals to shred her opponents to pieces.
• Gendered Outfit: Her travel outfit nicely complements Link's outfit. She already wore it before the Champions were brought together, so it's very possible that she designed the Champions' tunic, including Link's, using her own outfit as a baseline.
• Gold and White Are Divine: This version of Zelda is a brunette instead of a blonde, but she still wears a white ceremonial gown with gold jewelry for her ceremonial rituals at the springs when she tries to awaken her power. The Owl Spirit and her powers manifest entirely in a holy golden color.
• Go Through Me: She throws herself in front of Link when a Guardian is targeting him. She intended to use one of her three powers to save him, but instead, unleashes her immense sealing power.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She actually has green eyes, and she was envious of Link's apparent ease in accomplishing his destiny, while she couldn't unlock or even control her own powers. Through time, she warmed up to him, as they opened about each other's struggles, though this didn't stop Zelda from repeatedly doubting herself.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: King Rhoam mistakenly believed that rigorous prayer and ritual would unlock Zelda's power, but this apparently caused her to bloom late with her powers, if the Goddesses weren't suppressing her power themselves. It was a major reason for the one-sided conflict between her and Link, until they started growing closer.
• Hartman Hips: Link numerous times can't take his eyes away from her curvy figure.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Her primary role in Breath of the Wild, where she spends most of the story struggling to hold back Ganon as it grows stronger and stronger after 100 years of stalemate. She needs Link's assistance to weaken Ganon enough for her to separate the dark curse of Demise from Ganondorf's soul so that she can seal the curse away.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Zelda's inherited power is a divine power of her ancestors. It's the power of the entire Triforce in the form of a giant golden owl.
• I Am Very British: Her voice is described as being posh and formal most of the time, said to be typical of royalty.
• An Ice Suit: She wears a white coat with white fur when she goes to recruit revali.
• Inadequate Inheritor: How she sees herself. Her father and her subjects, too, because she can't activate her hereditary sealing power despite all her efforts to do so. It's to the point that her father dismisses her interests and forces her into the ritualistic practices.
• Inelegant Blubbering: She soars past the Despair Event Horizon after Calamity Ganon awakens, conquers Sheikah technology, and wipes out the Champions, King Rhoam and most of the kingdom. She's reduced to wailing into Link's chest as she screams out.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: She's extremely resentful of Link at first because Link seemed to easily accomplish his destiny with no effort while she has worked hard and continually fails to unlock her own divine power.
• Jerkass Realization: She comes around to Link starting when he saves her life from Yiga Footsoldiers about to kill her.
• Jerkass to One: The sequences where she's recruiting the Champions show that she was nothing but genuinely amicable towards them. She was only ever cold towards Link. It's eventually turned on its head when they grow closer than any of the other Champions, romantically close.
• The Leader: She's the commander of the Champions.
• Lady of Black Magic: After unlocking her sealing power and the Owl, Zelda completes her character development and becomes much more regal and ladylike in her behavior, while still wielding powers that can rival an apocalyptic Eldritch Abomination.
• The Load: She was considered this in the past because she couldn't awaken her divine powers. She tried to be The Smart Girl, but her father wasn't having any of it, forcing her into constant prayer. Thankfully, her powers of Nayru's Love, Din's Fire, and Farore's Wind allow her to avert this. And then Age of Calamity reveals that she indeed averted this altogether when she saved the day, activating an excavated Guardian to destroy the possessed Guardian attacking them.
• Magitek: She was the one who originally carried the Sheikah Slate. She left it to Link to help him on his post-slumber of restoration quest. She once again regains it at the end, and even receives an Ancient Overclock Unit to enhance its Runes.
• Male Gaze: Much like Zelda would indulge in Eating the Eye Candy with the shirtless Link, Link would do the same to her, staring at her curvy ass and is very appreciative of what he sees.
• Mirror Character: To Riju of the Gerudo, another girl whose status as a leader is questioned by the people and especially themselves. They both also suffered the loss of their mother in tender years.
• Missing Mom: Zelda's mother died when she was six years old. This left Zelda without someone to teach her to use her powers, as her mother, the Queen, was the parent with the power of Hylia and the goddess powers. Her father tries, but has no idea how to teach Zelda to use her powers.
• Modest Royalty: She has numerous extravagant outfits, but her default outfit is either a simple white ceremonial gown or a modest traveling outfit.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her outfit leaves no skin aside from her face and hands exposed, but Link is very appreciative of how it hugs her curves.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Downplayed because she has Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire, but she still lacks control of them, and even worse, can't access her sealing power, in contrast to the women of her family that preceded her. She finally averts this when she controls her three natural powers and accesses her divine power.
• My Greatest Failure: She hits the Despair Event Horizon hard when Calamity Ganon awakens. It leaves her feeling that everything she had done for ten years was all for nothing, because in the end, she couldn't save her father, friends, or kingdom...and not even Link.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Zelda never had the chance to make up with her father after their very heated confrontation in Hyrule Castle. She gets the chance to do so when his spirit comes to visit her in the ending, allowing them to finally achieve closure with each other, and he apologizes for his failure to see that he was holding her back.
• Nice Girl: To everyone except Link, she's a gentle girl with a heart of gold who cares for her people. She eventually grows to love Link dearly, shedding any jerkass tendencies with it.
• Older Than They Look: She still looks like she's 17, but she's really 117 years old. Her duel against Ganon left her in a stasis for 100 years.
• Painted-On Pants: Link is very appreciative that her travel outfit is skintight around her legs, hips, and ass.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The elegant gown that she wears for grandiose ceremonies in the castle.
• Playing with Fire: Din's Fire gives her the power to manipulate hot mystical flames that can resist extinguishing.
• The Power of Love: Her romantic relationship with Link pulls her out of her emotional instability, allowing her to control her three natural powers, and (if the Goddesses weren't the ones suppressing her powers) seems to have unlocked her access to the Owl Spirit and the Triforce. Mipha was likely going to tell her this before the Calamity struck.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Zelda has no combat training, but she gets better when she gets control of Nayru's Love, Din's Fire, and Farore's Wind, enough that she becomes a credible Action Girl. Once she unlocks her powers, she gains the power to transform into a giant golden Owl that can lay waste to all Guardians in her path. She is also the one who frees Ganondorf's soul from Demise's curse, with Link merely being her backup to do so.
• Princess in Rags: At the end of Breath of the Wild, her kingdom is only beginning to be rebuilt but quite quickly thanks to Paya's Reset Button powers, her father's dead, the Champions are dead, and most of the residents of Hyrule were wiped out by Calamity Ganon. However, Link retrieved many of her still-intact outfits from Hyrule Castle, allowing her to remain well-dressed, and apparently found a new white royal horse to deck out with the royal gear. But given that Hyrule is being rebuilt way faster than in the game, it's unlikely this will stay like that for long.
• Race Lift: Zelda's reimagined as being a black girl played by Yara Shahidi.
• Rebellious Princess: She's fed up with her father's consistent putting down her passion for Sheikah technology, and (in her eyes) using her as an image prop. She likes passing her time traveling and studying Sheikah relics, which her father doesn't approve of.
• Regal Ringlets: She has dark skin and naturally curly hair that serve as her most distinctive recognizable features.
• Religion is Magic: Averted, but assumed to be the case. The power that she's set to inherit is divine in nature, and thus logically it is concluded that it must be awakened through ritual and prayers. It's not.
• Rescue Romance: It's after Link saves her from Yiga Footsoldiers that she starts growing closer to him. They bond further through their shared struggles, they develop a romantic relationship.
• The Resenter: She sees Link as a reminder of her own failures, because in her eyes, he's succeeded everywhere where she's failed despite her extensive efforts to unlock her powers.
• Royalty Super Power: Her powers, including her sealing power or more accurately the Owl Spirit which channels the Triforce, is passed down through the women in her bloodline.
• Sacred Bow and Arrows: Zelda's final gift to Link is the Bow of Light for him to use against Dark Beast Ganon.
• Sealed Good in a Can: She locked herself in a duel with Calamity Ganon. The can itself for both of them is Hyrule Castle.
• Second Love: To Link, after things didn't work out between him and Mipha.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She develops feelings for Link after he saves her life, and especially after they begin confiding in each other about their respective struggles.
• The Smart Girl: To the Champions. While she becomes combat capable thanks to her three Goddess powers, she's still more focused on researching the ancient Sheikah relics.
• Sole Survivor: When the Calamity struck, Zelda was the only one who lived. Not even Link survived the Calamity. He was killed, and had to be put in the Shrine of Resurrection to, well, resurrect him.
• Spock Speak: 99% of the time, she's well-spoken even when she's angry. Until she soars over the Despair Event Horizon, at which point she drops multiple F-bombs in quick succession, much to Link's shock.
• Swallowed Whole: By Calamity Ganon when she went to face it after most of Hyrule's destruction, as Rhoam shows Link. It was her intention, as it allowed her to lock him away in Hyrule Castle until Link revived from his death.
• Taking the Bullet: She jumped between Link and a Guardian, intending to use one of her three natural powers to deal with the Guardian. Instead, it unlocked her sealing power, the power of the Owl Spirit. It was entirely unconscious, as she expressed complete surprise that it happened.
• Technobabble: Zelda often uses weird terminology when she starts nerding out over Sheikah technology and wildlife. Link doesn't seem to mind all that much.
• Telepathy: Zelda contacts Link, and a few other characters, through psychic connections with them. She used this to keep tabs on Link's daughter so that she could tell him that his child was still alive and waiting for him to return.
• Tempting Fate: She tells Link that she has no need for an escort. Barely a chapter later, she's shown fleeing from the Yiga Clan. She attempts to fight back with her powers, but they're so unstable and weak that she can't use them. She can't warp away, nor can she shield herself for long. She'd have been killed without Link.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: The Champions' garb, including Link's, were all crafted by her.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Calamity Ganon made the huge error of trying to swallow Zelda whole. All this did was put her in the perfect place to lock him and herself away from 100 years.
• Tough Leader Façade: Zelda's father warns her that the nobles are gossiping about her and her apparent inability to live up to her mother, grandmother, and her ancestress's legacy. He gets fed up with this, and tells Zelda it's her destiny to prove them wrong...which she does...only after Ganon awakens and devastates all of Hyrule into ruin.
• Town Girls: With Urbosa and Mipha, the "butch" and the "femme" to her "neither". She's more outwardly feminine and reserved than Urbosa, but not as graceful nor ladylike as Mipha.
• Tragic Keepsake: The Sheikah Slate serves as Link's keepsake from her, especially the photographs she took on it that help him remember his prior life.
• Training from Hell: Urbosa mentions that she once passed out in freezing cold water in her dedication to unlock her sealing powers.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening:
  • Her natural three powers avert this. When she's nearly killed by Yiga Clan members, her powers do not suddenly strengthen to save her. It's only after she starts to heal some of her mental strain that her natural three powers become strong and stable.
  • Her sealing power plays it straight. She only finally unlocks the Owl Spirit containing the power of the Triforce after Calamity Ganon awakens and kills everyone she loves, including Link, for whom her love awakens her power.
• True Blue Femininity: Most of her outfits are blue or have blue tones, especially her royal dress and her travel attire.
• Unskilled, but Strong: She's not well-versed in her own magic, but she's strong and creative enough with her magic to make use of it in combat. She eventually gains her divine powers, allowing her to transform into a giant golden owl, making her among the most powerful characters in the setting, but she's still not as well-trained as any of the other Champions.
• Unstable Powered Woman: Deconstructed. Her three natural powers are all Emotional Powers, meaning the worse her mental/emotional health is, the less stable her powers are. Her upbringing with an overbearing emotionally neglectful father, and the death of her mother and mentor at an early age before her training began, left her in a very unstable state, reflecting in her powers swinging between being weak and unstable to viciously volatile. However, once she starts a healthy relationship with Link that helps her to heal her mental health, she ends up getting a handle on her powers and they strengthen with her.
• Uptown Girl: To Link's Downtown Boy. A royal Sheikah poet who lusted for her was not happy with her choosing to love a person of common birth.
• Wake-Up Call: Her bitterness over her failures leads to her lashing out at Link, and telling him off that she can handle herself. She's quickly proved wrong when she's helpless to either escape or fight back against Yiga ambushing her.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: Her father was very strict on her, so much that by the time of the Calamity, she had given up on trying to get in his good graces and just calls him out on not really being a father to her. They finally make up in the last chapter of Breath of the Wild, and he not only finally gives her his approval, but also admits he was wrong about the way he went in raising her.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Early on, her personality towards Link is this. She quickly sheds it later on.
• White Stallion: Her preferred horse is a beautiful white horse with a royal purple bridle and saddle. Somehow, she finds another one and decks that horse with the royal gear as well in the end.
• When She Smiles: Much like the Japanese version of the game, Link mentions how he yearns to see Zelda's beautiful smile yet again.
• The Wise Princess: By nature, she's a scholarly and intelligent woman. She has nothing but a huge curiosity for Sheikah technology, but that doesn't take away the fact that she's still the Hyrulean princess.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: 100 years after the Calamity, many people still talk about the beautiful woman that Zelda is. Link thinks this too, and is eager to finish his quest so that he may be with her yet again.
• Wrench Wench: She gets to show off her engineering skills with Sheikah technology in Age of Calamity, where she personally fixes up and activates a recently excavated Guardian in seconds.

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