Ooh boy. That’s going to get people real mad real fast, but it’s not click-bait. I honestly believe it, and I hope you’ll understand why I say it by the end. Just keep an open mind and hold on to your outrage until you’ve heard me out.
A very quick background as to why this is coming now, and not over a year ago when the game came out. It’s a lot less complex than you’d think (as is often the case). When Breath of the Wild came out, I was in the last leg of my senior year of college. I tried to play some, but (despite what non-English majors will tell you) English is a no-joke major, especially in your senior year. Double that as a non-traditional student with real-world adult responsibilities. I simply didn’t have time to get engrossed in the story, and I ended up losing all the free time I had. So, over a year later, as my life has started to cool down I decided to start all over.
A Hero is Born
Why do I think that Princess Zelda is a positive feminine example? Because you get to see her hero’s journey. Granted, it’s through Link, but it’s there nonetheless. We don’t just see Zelda as the powerful sorceress that she is by the start of the game. We see her from the beginning, where she lacks any confidence and is unsure of her place in the world.
This is important. Many heroes are a victim of their world and their circumstances. Luke Skywalker was the child of Darth Vader, Bilbo Baggins the inheritor of the One Ring, and Don Quixote lost his grip on reality. That didn’t stop them from doing the right thing when it was their time to stand up, but it is important to remember where they started.
In fact, Zelda starts out as an even stronger character than many of her male counterparts. She knows she has the power to be the hero her people need. It’s not that she doesn’t have the drive to be great. She just doesn’t have the confidence in herself to think she alone has the strength needed to defeat Ganon. That lack of understanding of her own strength pushes her to try to fall into the background, and use her knowledge and scientific understanding to aid in the effort to defeat Ganon.
The primary difference between her and her male counterparts isn’t so much about capacity as it is approach. While unfortunate, men are culturally driven to step out into the world without any regard for anything in front of them, where women are discouraged from seizing the reins of control. As a result, when confronted by each of their arduous tasks, the male heroes jump straight into traffic without regard, where female heroes take a more self-consious journey.
A Strength of Spirit
I want to get one thing out of the way. In most incarnations of Princess Zelda, she is a total bad ass. Ganon doesn’t lock her up in a tower as a part of some weird Mario/Bowser fantasy. Princess Zelda is almost categorically the most powerful person in any kingdom of Hyrule. Ganondorf locks Princess Zelda up for that exct reason. He’s afraid of her, and is very strategically removing the biggest threat first.
Do you know who Ganon is not afraid of? Link. He may fear the Master Sword, and he’s long since learned to not underestimate its weilder, but Link is only a threat in that he is routinely the one that unleashes Princess Zelda. Note that I didn’t say frees or saves. All he does is unlocks the door and stands with the sword in hand to strike the final blow to seal Ganon away again.
In most Legend of Zelda games, Princess Zelda is far more self-assured, and has a greater understanding of what’s needed. In the original Legend of Zelda title, the reason why she was kidnapped by Ganon is because she split the Triforce of Wisdom and spread it across the kingdom. That is a high level understanding of what she needed to do, and an act of extreme power. She split apart an artifact of divine power and hid it all away behind very powerful guardians.
Breath of the Wild‘s Princess Zelda is obviously not there for most of the memories that Link recovers. She grows little by little over time, but it’s not until the end that she gains the wisdom and understanding needed to unlock her true potential. I could see where that moment could be misconstrued as her only being able to come into her own for the sake of a man, but I don’t think that’s the way it was at all. Princess Zelda doesn’t unlock her true potential to save Link.
Watching Link fall like that helped her realize that the power she had didn’t come from some shrine, a piece of technology, or an incantation. Princess Zelda always had the strength. What she realized that it was okay to fall. That the only thing that mattered was the fight. The fight for her friends. The fight for her people. The fight against the forces of evil. The fight for everything that is good in the world.
Heroes in All Sizes
How does this make Princess Zelda a positive feminine role model? Because in our culture today women are more free than ever to step out into roles of power. Do we have a long way to go? Yes, but the tides are shifting quickly now. What that also means is that we need to see women at all stages of development. It’s great to see a Diana, Princess of Themyscira, who are fully actualized, and can take on the world with confidence and bravado.
It’s also important to see many different types of women, at various stages of life. If all we see is women at the prime of their power, how are young women going to know that it’s okay to try to find your way there? Is it not going to be hard to think of all great women as being perfect the first time out? What happens if they falter? They can’t look to Wonder Woman for support during struggle, but they can look to Princess Zelda and see that failure is always an option. You can always get back up. The fight is what matters most.
Offbeat Thesis 