#and i will be blogging about my characters adventures in being driven mad by exposure to an undead eldritch abomination

[gay-jesus-probably]

Legend of Zelda is not now, never was, and will never be about getting rid of the monarchy in place, or Zelda examining her motivations. It's an adventure game with puzzles in a fantasy world where suspension of disbelief is expected and required. It's not that deep bro. People playing it are not going to assume the divine right of kings is correct, actually, from this game. It leans heavily on popular tropes, and regardless of whether or not those tropes are unproblematic, they are -popular- which is the point.

You can get deeply introspective about themes and such, but in the end it's a game for fun made to appeal to the widest audience possible and trying to paint the characters as anything other than fictional and therefore without agency beyond their writers will is both exhausting and pointless. And baffling. Nothing that exists is morally pure and perfect and the point is not whether the characters and setting adhere to a that and more about what the story is telling you. You can't assume anything about it beyond what is explicitly stated, and THAT has to go through the filter of fiction.

Look, I'm gonna be honest here, I didn't get much sleep and I'm done with TOTK anyways, so I really can't be fucked to reply to most of this.

But I do just need to take a second here to question that last point you said. I. Did you really just say. That when discussing the themes and morals of a narrative. People cannot assume ANYTHING about a fictional world except what an author has specifically said?

...Have you ever taken a language arts class before? Performed a novel study? Read a fanfiction? Had a single conversation about a story?

Analyzing a story to figure out what ISN'T being specifically stated is like. Literally the bare minimum of engaging with a narrative.

And that argument for 'totk is good actually' just shoots yourself in the foot there, because I've already said part of the reason I talked so much about the fucked up implications of the worldbuilding was because if I just took the story at face value, I could not give less of a fuck about it. It's flat, there's nothing to connect to, and nothing changes. Zelda explains the entire plot in the opening sequence, and it's never challenged. Nothing changes, nobody learns anything, there's no character arcs... it's just boring. I don't care. I mean oh my god, 95% of the actual plot just takes place in optional memories, which all happen in the past without the player characters involvement. Whose decision was that??? It's a role playing game! That means the story is important, and the player being personally involved in the story is not optional.

If I take the story of TOTK at face value, then I'd say as far as writing quality and character depth goes, it's about on the same level as the Zelda CDI games. And for writing I'm still gonna have to side with the CDI games for being funnier, and also less repetitive - sure, they reused a few cutscenes in the CDI games, but they were like five seconds long. Meanwhile TOTK reuses the same five minute cutscene four times during the main story quest. I'm glad you're enjoying the game anon, this isn't me personally attacking you or anything, but people are only calling the story good because of the sheer amount of hype. The gameplay is fucking amazing of course, that's some 10/10 work. But if we just look at the story they were trying to tell? It's a fucking mess. This thing will not age well, mark my words.

#tears of the kingdom #now everyone stop trying to argue with me about this damn game #i've been very clear im happy other people liked the story. i just want y'all to stop harassing me for NOT liking it #unfortunately for everyone this is now a fallen london blog #and i will be blogging about my characters adventures in being driven mad by exposure to an undead eldritch abomination #there's gonna be cannibalism it'll be great