Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

Well, it's that time again. And what do I mean by that? It's high noon. It's time for "Why we can't have a female Link", round X.

Aonuma's reasoning from the E3 events is kind of telling, mainly because it shows they're enforcing certain tropes on the series. Specifically, Two Guys and a Girl is mandatory for the Triforce trio, where 1) one of the three has to be a singular case of The Hero, with no spotlight sharing, and 2) Distressed Dude is not something that can ever happen.

It's both very Japanese and kind of sad, really.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

It's about time they just made em both playable throughout a full on Zelda title with different tweaks.

It took an outsourced spinoff in Hyrule Warriors to finally make Zelda a non-Damsel in Distress and a competent Princess/Queen Warrior Prince style and now that main titles are being made again, U Turn! No thank you.

Also I take issue with the fact that Nintendo is massively censoring, removing large chunks of and covering up every piece of skin in the new fire emblem x smt game◊ yet Link is fine being almost completely naked while in the new trailer. The Double Standard is huge.

Hell they are advertising 'Naked Link' runs with this new game...

edited 15th Jun '16 10:35:08 AM by Memers

Watsonian: Because Skyward Sword's prequel manga, next.^context  The Goddess Hylia sacrifices her divinity to be reborn a reincarnating mortal alongside her reincarnating male champion

Doylist: Because Link has long since stopped being an avatar and now is a branding icon himself, since definite characteristics have been creeping in the games for a long time and as such have solidified him from a marketing standpoint, they'd much rather make Zelda a protagonist than make Link a blank slate again. But being japanese don't know what to do with Link when he is not the main character.

Yeah, the reasonings are awful.

I mean, couldn't he have at least said "people are simply too used to Link being male and he feels like it's who he is now, and I don't think changing it is a good idea." The excuse he gave reeks of bullshit. It's even worse for Zelda. Apparently she can't be a hero... because it must be Link, yep.

To note, HW was not made by Aonuma either. He only gave a few opinions on it. He didn't want Tingle playable, and look what happened. It's just a spin-off with no effect on the franchise. It has simply as much impact on canon as the CD-i games did.

I think you guys are reading a bit much into that statement. All it really says is that there's an established relationship between Link, Zelda, and Ganon, and screwing with that relationship isn't a can of worms they wanted to open. That's fair — Link is an established character and Zelda is an established franchise, I don't really think "but why is the main character who's been the same for 30 years ALWAYS A GUY?!?!" is a fair question. The main character is always a guy because Link is the main character, and Link is a guy. It's not like the Zelda franchise hasn't had its share of Action Princess characters (Zelda as Sheik in OOT, Pirate Zelda in WW, Midna in TP, etc).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It's never the same Link thogh, it's reincarnations or descendents or atimeline BS 90% of the time, there is no reason why tehe eact same soul jsut happens to every time be a guy and it owuld take literally no effort on their parto have the option of a male or female Link in such an open world version of the game.

Also those action-y versions of Zelda instantly get relegated to object status as soon as she looks like her traditional self, that feels fishy.

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She never actually does anything really and ALWAYS has to be rescued by Link at least once in every single game, most importantly she never actually gets to be playable.

Hyrule Warriors was the first time that she ever became an actual character and allowed us to see things from the usual 'afterthought' member of the trio. Also she is flat out never a Damsel in Distress.

And really with how barebones Zelda games are story wise I really don't see how a character select at the start between Link and say Linkle isn't a given at this point. It's not like they will be putting serious romance into the game or anything to that effect.

edited 15th Jun '16 10:53:29 AM by Memers

It's different people but the same character. They could just as easily made it a completely unrelated character every single time, but they didn't. It's always Link, even if it's not always the same Link. There are plenty of reasons (both in terms of marketing and story) for this. It's not like it's arbitrarily done just because "lolol girls can't be heroes".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Link is a Legacy Character. There's literally no reason why Link can't be female.

Oh really when?

Considering Mass Effect's marketing I have to whole heartedly disagree. They had both genders available in all 3 games and only advertised the default M!Shep in the first game and still kept advertising him well into the second game.

But F!Shep was universally the bigger hit with the crowds. And the fact that both genders were there was one of the game's primary selling points as F!Shep got more and more popular. To the point where they made the 3rd game's cover reversible.

Even Japan preferred F!Shep from my understanding.

Having a female option as a PC would be a HUGE marketing boon across the world for Nintendo and they could just point out that M!Link is still completely if one wants to.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:11:24 AM by Memers

That. Skyward Sword established that although the various Zeldas are reincarnations, the various Links are people with "the spirit of the hero". Anyone can be Link. That's kinda the point of the character. It's why players are invited to rename him when they start a game. It's why he lacks any defined traits or dialogue. Hell, it's why his name is Link; because he is the player's link to the game.

Trying to preserve Link's "identity" is ridiculous because Link has no identity. He's a blank slate meant for players to define as they will. He's as much a character as the Dragonborn or the Vault Dweller.

I'll be more open to the concept that Link is totally a defined character with key traits and an identity that needs to be kept intact from game to game just as soon as they start giving him dialogue. Even Hyrule Warriors dances around his personality by having a faerie appropriately named Proxie speak for him.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:17:15 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Link is not a Legacy Character in the way that you're trying to say. Link is not an identity that can be assumed by other people, like Robin (of which there are what, six?). Link is the same character every time, even if he's reincarnated (or an alternate timeline version, or whatever). Saying that Link could be a girl is less like saying that Batman could be a girl and more like saying Bruce Wayne could be a girl. Well, yes, it's true — they could totally do a new Batman comic where Bruce Wayne is female. But it wouldn't be the same character anymore and I don't think you can really call them out for not wanting to change an established character that way.

Zelda is not Mass Effect. Nor is it Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or [other self-insert branching-storyline path game here]. It's a linear story about specific characters doing specific things, not something where the main character is a blank slate that's supposed to be filled in by you, the player. Saying "but why can't Zelda do it like them?!" is silly because the answer is "because they're completely different kinds of games with completely different kinds of stories".

Link-as-blank-slate hasn't really been true since around OOT, if not earlier. In the very first game (where the name "Link" came from) there was pretty much literally no story beyond a blurb in the manual. That was 30 years ago. Whatever Link was originally, he's an established character now.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:26:20 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

There is only one requirement to be Link and that is to be born with the Spirit of a Hero. Nowhere in that says he has to be male.

Oh really when?

He's male because he's an established character with a 30-year history who has always been male. There's nothing wrong with this.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:27:50 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

None of the Zelda games require Link to be male as a plot point outside of a joke or two. None of them.

He is more of a blank slate than anything in Mass Effect or Dragon Age by design. There is no reason why the character has to be male in a game that isn't a direct sequel with the same Link.

It's not the same Link in every game, only direct sequels like Majora's mask are the same Link.

Adding an option for a female Link would give people what they want, not take away from M!Link and open up a marketing boon and grab people more people willing to look at your game, even in Japan.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:35:54 AM by Memers

30 years of tradition is a horrible excuse and if anything a better reason to mix things up. Would you honestly make the same argument for, say, Elementary's Watson, a "drastic" deviation of Watson Classic's white male-ness and military background?

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The reincarnated champion of Hylia, who possess the spirit of the hero, is a male. Just like Hylia's mortal form is always a female of royal blood named Zelda.

If they wanted to mix things up with a female Link, then that's fine. That's their prerogative — it's their game and their character, they can do what they want with it.

What I'm arguing against is the idea that they're somehow wrong for not suddenly making their long-established male character female instead. You're right that they could do it. The series could handle it. But just because they could do it doesn't mean they're wrong to not do it.

Again: different person, but same character. Link is always Link, whether we're talking the Hero of Time, the Hero of Winds, or the Hero of Light, or whichever. Link is always recognizable as Link regardless of which game you're talking about (graphics available at the time notwithstanding). Making him suddenly female would be a significant change.

No, it's not. "Your character has been male for 30 years, make him a girl now!" is a ridiculous argument.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I don't really think them not wanting to make Link female is necessarily a problem in and of itself, if they identify Link primarily as male and want to keep him that way that's not inherently bad if a little disappointing to people who might have wanted the option to play as female Link. Aonuma's reasoning is pretty tone-deaf but I can't say I'm really surprised, he's an old japanese man after all.

The fact they explain away having Zelda taking up a sword or being a hero with "But what would Link do then?" is pretty telling.

Well, if Link has always been the hero, and then you make someone else the hero, what would Link do then? It seems like a fair question to me.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

x7 I am not a huge fan of Elementary's Watson, I find her pretty bland. When someone 'Gender flips' a character they need to keep the essence of the character instead of replacing whole chunks.

I would have preferred a woman with the same PTS Ded Doctor background and wealth of issues around that including a limp to that show's version. A lot more interesting and better dynamics with the eccentric addict Sherlock.

But when it comes to link well he is a rugged left handed hero who likes to wear green and save princesses, no chunks to mess around with. Just give that with a girl character.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:56:27 AM by Memers

Be the Hero of Another Story, or he could tag along. There's no reason Link would have nothing to do if Zelda was the MC.

The same thing Cid does in the FF games when he isn't a party member. The same thing Luke is doing in the new Star Wars.

Anything other than being the main playable hero.

edited 15th Jun '16 11:58:32 AM by LordofLore

Being a sexy Mechanic? A Marketing ploy?