Link (The Legend of Zelda)

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Character
Name: Link
Occupation: Hero
Relationships: Epona (faithful steed)
Fandom: The Legend of Zelda, Super Smash Bros.
Other:
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Link is the protagonist of Nintendo's video game series The Legend of Zelda. The character appears in several incarnations over the course of the games, and also features in other Nintendo media, including its merchandising, comic books, and a cartoon series. He is one of Nintendo's main icons as well as one of the most well-known and popular characters in video game history.

Background

Through The Legend of Zelda series, Link is depicted as a child, teenager, or young adult of the Hylian race, originating from the fictional land of Hyrule. Link often travels through Hyrule, defeating creatures, evil forces, and the series' primary antagonist, Ganon, while attempting to save Princess Zelda and Hyrule. To defeat Ganondorf, Link usually requires the mystic Master Sword and Light Arrows, or a similar legendary weapon, obtained after many trials and battles. In the course of his journey he will typically acquire various other magical objects or items, including musical instruments and weaponry.

Reception and popularity

In many Western gaming communities, Link is Nintendo's most popular character, even surpassing company mascot Mario who is most popular in Japan. This even has some effect outside of said gaming communities; Link's amiibo has consistently been the best-selling amiibo figure in Western regions.

Most popular character in SSB fan fiction on FFN.[1]

Fanon and meta

Muteness and non-verbal Link

While Link is famous for his loud battle cries and other expressive vocaliztions, he is also famous for having little to no actual speech in games. In the early era of video gaming that marked his debut, not only did games lack voice acting, but for the most games also lacked dialogue and conversable non-player characters--outside of rare expository sequences. Other famous video game protagonists such as Mario, Samus, and others were similarly silent. However, as The Legend of Zelda has evolved throughout the decades, creating a populous world with a chatty cast of characters, and introducing some fully voice-acted cutscenes in 2017's Breath of the Wild--Link himself usually does not speak.

Sometimes in canon, Link responds to questions, or other characters reference Link speaking.[2] But because he generally doesn't audibly speak, many fans speculate that Link communicates through gestures or sign language instead.

Fans come up for their own explanations for Link's lack of speech. Some headcanon that he is selectively mute; some headcanon that he has a disability such as expressive aphasia, deafness, or a separate speech disorder.

In other media such as the 1989 animated series, the 1991 CD-i games, and the manga adaptations, Link is equally talkative compared to other characters. Some fans depict Link similarly in their fan works, and treat his in-game laconism as a stylistic choice or tradition unrelated to the digetic lore.

Family/lineage

Link is often introduced as an orphan, and little to no information is given regarding his parents. Some versions of Link have been depicted with an uncle or a grandma or a sister, but more frequently he's introduced without any family background. Fans construct various backstories and explanations to fill in the blanks. See also: Everyone Is Related.

Unhinged

  • Breaking pots
  • Trespassing into people's houses
  • Provoking cucco massacres

Game-specific fanon

  • The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link - This game marked the first appearance of Dark Link, a one-battle enemy. In fanworks, Dark Link is often treated as a realized character with a distinct personality.
  • Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask
    • Mysterious mother's backstory; son of a knight
    • Zelda's long-lost brother, secretly royalty
    • Eventually himself becomes a high-ranking knight, additionally implied by the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess
    • Mentally and emotionally ten years old throughout the game
    • Trauma/PTSD
    • Combat, destruction, death, loss of the Deku Tree, exile from the Kokiri Forest
    • Majora's mask transformation - body horror
    • Dealing with the loss of his friend Navi
    • Becomes the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess - ancestor of Link
      • Some fans feel that—given the Hero of Twilight's background as a commoner working in animal husbandry—Malon is the most likely to be eventual wife of the Hero of Time, compared to the royals Zelda and Ruto.
  • Four Swords and Four Swords Adventure - Different personalities for each colored Link
    • Green: leader, balanced, unchanged
    • Blue: lazy, silly, laid-back
    • Red: impulsive, anger-prone, aggressive, violent
    • Purple: flamboyant
  • Twilight Princess
    • Between Twilight Princess and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, this Link incarnation has a relatively high volume of fic on FanFiction.Net. This version of Link appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and thus his fanon aspects may carry over to his portrayal in respective fan works.
    • In-game, this Link is referred to as "the Hero Chosen by the Gods", but fans have more commonly referred to him as "the Hero of Twilight" or just "Twilight" for short. Later, official materials have also referred to him as the Hero of Twilight.
    • The game introduces Link as a goatherd and the blacksmith Rusel's apprentice, living independently in the small village of Ordon, but details regarding his past—including any biological family—are sparse. Common fanon speculates that he was orphaned as a child, and subsequently lived on his own, with Rusl serving as his father figure.
    • Descendant of the Hero of Time/Hero's Shade.
    • In fan works, Link may express preference for his wolf form over his human form. He may begin feeling wolfish impulses and adopting wolfish behavior, even in his human form, and may follow other tropes associated with werewolves in fiction. In stories set post-canon, he often retains the power to transform into a wolf, either involuntarily or at will.
  • Spirit Tracks - For fans who ship Tetra with the Hero of the Winds, this Link may be of royal descent, blood-related to the Princess Zelda of his time.
  • Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom - This version of Link is the one with the greatest volume of fic on Archive of Our Own (AO3), as BotW was a gateway for many new and returning fans, likely marking the biggest wave of interest in TLoZ since AO3 gained mass popularity in the early 2010s.
    • Physical and psychological trauma as a result of being wounded to the brink of death, suffering a lack of identity due to his amnesia, and grieving the loss of nearly everyone and everything he loved.
    • In humorous works, often inspired by BotW speedruns, Link may be portrayed as a "feral underwear-clad elf boy" who defies basic physics, ignores everyone who tries to speak with him, and sprints from his sanctuary to defeat Calamity Ganon in about half an hour,[3] otherwise ignoring his main quest in favor of tomfoolery and cooking foraged ingredients.
    • This version of Link appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and thus his fanon aspects may carry over to his portrayal in Ultimate fan works.

Intracanon crossovers

In canon, Link has generally possessed similar skills and personality traits across his incarnations—especially compared to other recurring characters such as Zelda and Impa, who may vary drastically between installments. In fan crossovers between the games, in which the Links somehow meet up across time and space, the Links' differences are emphasized, elaborated, and fleshed-out in order to create distinct characters with dynamic relationships to one another. Link & Link refers to a relationship between two incarnations of Link and is the base unit of expanded relationships such as Link & Link & Link, and Link & Link & Link & Link, and so on.

See the Link and the Links AU by naomiskyeheart (lightsintheskye) [1] and the Linked Universe AU for two of the best known examples.

Female Link speculation and Linkle

The idea had been around for a while in the early 2010's, but it was only proposed by a small and quite minority. Things changed with the E3 2014 reveal trailer of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which showed a Link that looked more androgynous than usual, to the point that it created some confusion for viewers. After that, and the confirmation that this Link was indeed a male, the debate jumped to the forefront of the fandom, with all different kinds of opinions on the matter.

Come 2016, Hyrule Warriors introduced Linkle, a playable character in its series, having first appeared the art book with the description of “The girl version of the hero Link”. The reaction to Linkle was mixed[4], while many fans were excited to finally be able to play as a female version of Link, some were disappointed that she was only available in a spin-off series, and not the main franchise.

Queerness

Link has become somewhat of a queer icon. This is especially true of the Link of Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, though there were also smatterings of this with previous Links.

Trans!Link

Shipping

Link is a popular character in shipping, both within the Zelda fandom and crossovers with other Nintendo franchises, which was further helped by Link inclusion in the crossover fighting games Super Smash Bros.

Preferences for shipping Link are specific to each incarnation. For example, Link/Midna is quite common among fics set in the era of Twilight Princess, but very uncommon in any other continuity. Link's Ocarina of Time shipping is likely the most varied, while shippers generally find the pool of romantic candidates to be sparser for his other incarnations. Link/Zelda is almost invariably Link's juggernaut pairing, given that his relationship with the princess is likely his most significant and frequently recurring throughout the series.

Common pairings include:

Example fan works

Fan fiction

  • The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time by DragonRand100 — "This is the tale of an ancient land of lush forests and verdant meadows. A land blessed by the Goddesses where the powers of light and shadow exist in perfect balance. This is the story of the kingdom of Hyrule, of a king who sought to control the power of the gods, and of a boy without a fairy. A boy whose struggle against the shadow became a legend, riding upon the winds of time..."
  • Congruent by Sincosma — "Derived from the old word congruō, Congruence is a rare cosmic phenomenon. While much is still unknown about this particular bond, it is characterized by a very powerful, very concentrated energy exchange between the two subjects – undoubtedly the most powerful one ever observed."

Art

Meta

Memes

Links & Resources

Fan communities and archives

Notes

References

  1. ^ https://phantomstatistician.tumblr.com/post/183118794411/fandom-super-smash-brothers-sample-size-11900#notes
  2. ^ https://www.zeldadungeon.net/heres-how-link-is-quite-the-talker-and-always-has-been/
  3. ^ https://youtu.be/1or3YILu28M
  4. ^ Three Very Different Takes On Linkle, The Female Link
Related Concepts, Fandoms, Terms, Fanworks
See also
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