Mah boi, these memes are what all true tropers strive for!
Do you really want to read a page entirely dedicated to Zelda memes?
Yeah!
Media with their own subpages.
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ExplanationLike this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
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General series memes
- DUH-NUH-NUH-NAAAAAAAAAAA ExplanationThe series' iconic
Item Get! jingle, which has been used in many videos where someone obtains or accomplishes something.- DUH-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-nuh-nuh-NAAAA ExplanationThe series' iconic "puzzle solved" jingle. Used in a similar way to the Item Get! jingle, but to a lesser extent.
- It's Tingle! Get the angry mob ready! ExplanationThe Tingle character is seen as crude, horrible to look at, acts like a Manchild, and is simply hated by the Western audience overall. However, Japanese gamers love Tingle. This is why the Americans Hate Tingle trope exists. Or, at least, why it has its name.
- Link hates pots. ExplanationIn nearly every game, Link can smash pots or jars to retrieve what's inside, usually recovery hearts or rupees. As a result, it's common in the fandom to portray Link and his reincarnations as having an irrational hatred for pottery or having some other sort of compulsion to destroy every pot he sees.
- Pottery is the arch enemy of all video game protagonists. ExplanationThe meme itself has expanded to just about any series where Rewarding Vandalism is a thing, such as Dragon Quest and Ōkami to name a few. When this trope is in play, expect it to be compared to Zelda, especially when pots are involved.
- A stock parody portrayal of Link is to portray him as flamboyant and Camp Gay, which produced Xandir.
- The infamous Zelda Timeline as presented by Hyrule Historia and Hyrule Encyclopedia has become a popular base format for joke timeline theories of other franchises, often including an Alternate Timeline split entirely based on a What If? scenario. Examples include Wario timeline, Donkey Kong timeline, and even a Tony Hawk timeline.
- Cucco Revenge Squad ExplanationAn unofficial Fan Nickname in where if the player attacks a Cucco several times, the Cucco will angrily call his flock and a swarm of invincible Cuccos attack Link to death until the player leaves the area.
CD-i Games
The cutscenes in these games have such
Deranged Animation and hammy voice acting that they are very well-known thanks to
YouTube Poop.
- MAH BOI! ExplanationThe King is actually saying "My Boy". The King's lines are often a source of parody videos on YouTube. The screenshot often used, with the King raising his pointer finger, is actually from when he says "...strive for".
- "This peace is what all true warriors strive for." ExplanationThe line said directly after the above, and the source of the King's pointer finger image.
- "I wonder what's for dinner?" ExplanationAnother oft-parodied line by the King. It's one of two namers behind the "SpaDinner" subgenre of YouTube Poop, since many of those videos like to replace random words with "dinner".
- "After you've scrubbed all the floors in Hyrule, then we can talk about mercy!" ExplanationThe King's punishment to Duke Onkled after the latter begs for mercy. Typically, the punishment is replaced with something else in YouTube Poops.
- King Harkinian and Zelda's laugh Explanation King Harkinian and Zelda's faces are seriously Off-Model and the first part of King Harkinian's laugh has been used as reaction sound effects or remixed into songs. Just like in the game, their laughter is also used to end the video in most Zelda CD-I Youtube Poops.
- "Squadala! We're off!" ExplanationSaid by Gwonam, a wizard from The Faces of Evil as he flies off with his carpet. Gwonam's scenes are some of the most popular to edit in YTPs, with this line being the most popular.
- "Lamp oil? Rope? Bombs? You want it? It's yours, my friend, as long as you have enough rubies." ExplanationSaid by Morshu, the storekeeper from The Faces of Evil, when talking to him.
- "Sorry, Link. I can't give credit. Come back when you're a little... MMMMM... richer!" ExplanationMorshu's second line when trying to buy something too expensive. Made famous thanks to his MMMMM being used in plenty of remix videos.
- "[Person] explaining why [they did some humorous and/or offensive thing]"ExplanationA meme format where a caption along these lines is put above a sped-up GIF animation of Morshu's greeting cutscene.
- "You DARE bring light to my lair?! YOU MUST DIE!" ExplanationLine said by Ganon once you face him in The Wand of Gamelon. YouTube Poops will swap out "light" with anything else.
- "Join me, Link, and I will make you a Facenote Often written as "your face", the GREATEST in Koridai! Or else you will DIE."ExplanationLine said by Ganon once you face him in The Faces of Evil. The "die" in this line and the one above are often used in videos whenever someone dies.
- "NO! Not into the pit! IT BUUUUUURNNSSS!!" ExplanationGanon's last words in The Faces of Evil. Whenever something involves fire or burning, this line can be expected.
- "I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos!" ExplanationOne of Link's lines at the beginning of The Faces of Evil, which caught on and, like most of these quotes, has been frequently mutated in YTP.
- "Gee, it sure is boring around here." ExplanationLink's very first line in The Faces of Evil, which is often edited or mutated so Link can call other things boring.
- "This is illegal, you know!" ExplanationA quote from Mayor Cravendish, a character in The Wand of Gamelon, which is typically used in YouTube Poops when something illegal or questionably legal occurs.
- ♫Looks like you've got a baby penis...♫ExplanationLyrics for the overworld map theme from The Wand of Gamelon, courtesy of Danny Sexbang.
- "[Insert rapper here] has nothing on Morshu" ExplanationThere's a large amount of videos using Morshu's lines for remixes and even covers of various songs, some of which feature him rapping at insane speeds (Such as this cover of Eminem's Rap God). This has made him something of a Memetic Badass who can beat anyone in a rap battle.
- "He's only got two lines in the entire game!" Explanation Related to the above, it's very common to see commenters pointing out that Morshu only has two lines in the entire game - and by extension, the entire series - which can apparently be sentence mixed to just about anything.
- Google actually lists Morshu as a musical artist.
- Morshu Reads The Entire Bible! Explanationa YouTuber by the name of Competitive and Casual made a video of Morshu reading the entire bible, which gotten notoriety on the internet for it's extremely long runtime and showing up on people's reccomendation feeds, yet also being impressively well done despite using a Text-to-Speech program that uses sentence-mixing.
Other
- Well, excuuuuuuuse me, Princess!ExplanationLink's retort whenever Zelda mocked him in the animated series. It's since become a popular response to criticism, as well as naming a trope.
- Looking good, Princess Zelda -- especially from THIS angle!ExplanationThe first words out of Link's mouth in the series, spoken to a Zelda in her undergarments on a balcony below. Zelda, having heard that, immediately gets a coat to wear.
- Link, he come to town... ExplanationJoe Pleiman's 1998 song based off the series, "Zelda", which is often misattributed to System of a Down, has grown quite popular, both within and outside of the fandom.
- Zelda's response to being told "I love you". ExplanationA 6-panel image showing the responses of 6 different Zeldas from 6 different games to being told "I love you", reflecting their differences in personality. It has been common to replace Zelda with a different character, as well as changing what is being told and the reactions that follow.
- 1986 Female Link. ExplanationArtwork from the Japanese magazine Shonen Captain depicted Link as a pink-haired woman, predating Linkle and the "What if Zelda was a girl?" meme by several decades; as well as Link to the Past's pink haired Link. When high-quality scans surfaced in 2022, this design proved to be quite popular with the fandom, resulting in a surgence of fanart. While Rule 63 Link is not a new concept by any means, depicting her with long pink hair is specifically a reference to this magazine.
- If Great King of Evil Ganondorf ExplanationVideos where voices in popular videos are edited to be low pitch like Ganondorf became popular in 2022-23.
Fandom Memes
- "GANNON-BANNED" ExplanationA satirical punishment doled out to Zelda fans (sometimes trolls) who get details wrong regarding the series. It originates from the original The Legend of Zelda, which had a typo in the story prologue that erroneously refers to Ganon as "Gannon", and is used to mock those who don't realize that "Gannon" is a typo.
- '99% Confirmed.' ExplanationShortly before E3 2010, the website Zelda Informer posted a bunch of "inside info" about the then-upcoming Skyward Sword, known at the time simply as "Legend of Zelda." The header for the image was the early artwork with "99% Confirmed" printed over it in big, bold letters. Their alleged source? Someone whom they claimed was Miyamoto's English translator... whom they also said happened to be German. A few days later, E3 came along and debunked all of their claims, prompting the main moderator of the site to post a video where he seemingly shoved a Wii Remote up his nose, which he said he would do if he was wrong. The website has yet to live it down, and "99% confirmed" has become a joke on other fansites, even non-Zelda ones.
- What if Zelda was a girl? ExplanationA form of trolling intended to invoke a Fandom-Enraging Misconception by referring to the player character as Zelda, who is a girl. This meme also saw resurgence with the official reveal of Linkle, Link's Distaff Counterpart in Hyrule Warriors, as well as the "1986 Female Link".
- What if Zelda was a grill? ExplanationA further mutation of the above meme with an intentional typo for added humor.
- Zelda is the Princess. The green guy is Luigi. ExplanationA Bait-and-Switch where the meme appears to be discredited, only to continue the joke of the protagonist being misnamed.
- The famous "''Zelda'' rant" meme◊, where a portrait of series creator Shigeru Miyamoto explodes into a profane (and sometimes slightly racist, although versions exist without the broken phonetic English) tirade about the fickle and cyclical nature of the series' fanbase, always treating the last game in the series as a Sacred Cow above criticism and angrily hating on the newest game for changing too much, not enough, or both at the same time, only to suddenly change their tune and decide said game is Vindicated by History the second another installment comes out. It's usually followed up by ashamed fans owning the criticism. Some versions, like the one posted, even have him declare it's the reason Nintendo decided to pivot to more general family audiences with the Wii.
Ganon: The memes! NOOOOO! You haven't seen the last of me!
