Zelda didn’t originally like Link. She outright avoided him at all costs and wasn’t particularly nice to him. And despite her own efforts, Link’s own determination and devotion to his role finally wore her down to the point where she realized how wrong she had judged him.
Link was a prodigy, he had the sword that would seal the darkness already (had since he was a mere preteen) and was known for besting adults in duels as a literal child. She was born with powers she couldn’t unlock despite all the effort she put in. She thought he was simply handed his fortunes in life with no consequences, while she struggled daily to uphold her father’s expectations for her and neglect her own hobbies.
But when Link steadfastly protected her in a place she had specifically gone to in order to escape him, she sees the truth behind it all. Link is determined. He never backs down from a fight. He’s also reckless and she understands this as she chastises him and worries over his well-being. He’s knowledgeable about horses and has good advice, always willing to share it when someone (aka Zelda) needs to hear it. She learns bit by bit about Link until she outright questions why he doesn’t talk much. And he genuinely hesitates but decides that he can share this with her. She’s the only one he ever has. Because she asked.
And he tells her. The sword on his back brings a great responsibility and massive burden to bare. He feels the need to be strong and to be the stoic perfect knight to take on the role everyone expects him to play.
They become much closer after this and there’s multiple times we see Link actually neglect his role as her protector in order to just be there for Zelda as her friend. Once in the spring memory where he turns after Zelda berated her inability to awaken her power and the second when they’re literally running away from murder bots and he doesn’t force her to continue when she slips but rather kneels, listens, and comforts her.
And to find out that Zelda’s love for Link is the reason she awakened her powers and that it’s canonically proven through Kass’ song? Wow. And that doesn’t even BEGIN their story and how it ends in totk.
In botw, the Japanese original logs are written by Link himself and it’s revealed that one of his motivators in saving Zelda was to see her smile once again. Just. Remember that.
Of course the game end and we do see Link and Zelda planning on traveling to investigate Vah Ruta. And we find out in ToTK that the two are inseparable, so much so that without Zelda by his side no one recognizes Link beyond the characters that genuinely know him through the story.
They’ve traveled across Hyrule and helped numerous people, no matter what it was. They live together in Hateno, where they helped to build a school and even teach the kids there. They founded expedition and research teams, reformed a guard, and even found the time to ‘vacation’ at Lurelin where they would go up to Lover’s Pond in the evening.
Zelda and Link create a home out of Hyrule. It’s no longer a desolate, sparingly populated land. It’s being reformed. It’s being cared for. It’s their home. They lost theirs 100years prior but they’ve steadily worked to make it a home once again. They were healing. Together.
So losing Zelda again, being unable to reach her, and also losing his sword. . . It’s a lot. But the thing he knows he must do— Find Princess Zelda. Despite knowing exactly where Zelda is after you finish the Tears of the Dragon Quest, Link does not complete it. Because he hasn’t found his Zelda. The one that rambles on about everything and gets excited about history and new discoveries. The one that tried to make him eat a frog (albeit she was on to something). She isn’t home.
Meanwhile Zelda. . . Zelda goes on about Link, enough for Sonia to know all about him and his tendency to worry over Zelda’s well-being. And then we have memory eight that has Zelda practically gushing about him to her pseudo-parents and promptly being teased for it. Then, as Zelda finally understands why she is in the past, she ensures Link has everything he could need in order to win. Because to her, Link and Hyrule surviving is a must. She sacrifices herself to ensure that.
And yet. . . Link is determined to bring her back. Hyrule won’t be the home they’ve worked so hard to make it so without her. He can’t quit until they find a way to revert her back. So when Rauru and Sonia channel their power through Link, it takes a moment for him to understand by when he does… WHOOH boy does the determination SHINE in his eyes.
And he gets her back. He reaches her. Protects her just as she did for him in the form of restoring the Master Sword. And she immediately rambles.
We don’t get to see Link’s reaction to any of this. But then we end with “Link, I’m home” and a SMILE. Because that’s all Link wants. For Zelda to be safe and smiling.
Ultimately, they just want to be home. And home is with the other.
I want to talk about Link’s determination in TotK.
Besides defeating Ganon, we have another priority mission called Finding Zelda.
When we find all dragon tears and watch Zelda’s memories, we finish the quest The Dragon’s Tears.
And we realize that we finally found Zelda. And also we realize that Zelda cannot return to human again.
We found Zelda but Finding Zelda quest isn’t completed.
But we completed The Dragon’s Tears quest and get this quest log update.
なんとしてもゼルダ姫の想い(omoi)に応えなければ
I must repay Princess Zelda’s 想い, by any means necessary.
想いに応える(omoini kotaeru) means repay someone’s 想い. It is not like physically repaying something, It is more like heart to heart. (I made post about Zelda’s 想い. It is Zelda’s love for Link and Hyrule.)
So if I directly translate that sentence to Link’s thoughts,
“I must defeat Ganon for Zelda, by any means necessary.”
We know the quest logs are Link’s personal journal. Link seems very determined to destroy Ganon for Zelda and he will.
But now we start thinking “what about finding Zelda?” I mean, because we actually found Zelda..
And we see the answer after this cut scene.
Finding Zelda quest is finally completed after Link get true Zelda back. (And with her beautiful smile of course 😉)
This scene shows us that even after Link learned that Zelda cannot return to human again, he was determined to bring her back and didn’t think about losing her forever.
We play this game as Link, but we don’t know what he actually think.
But when we read the quest logs or find elements like this, we can see Link’s actual thoughts.
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