TOTK and the suspension of disbelief
All sci-fi and fantasy media occasionally require us to put our skepticism on the backburner. And that's fine, otherwise we wouldn't have space wizards with laser swords and the magical ability to pull a mile-long star cruiser out of the sky.
TOTK is no exception. Zelda and Link wield powers beyond those of mortals, and we accept that because "it's magic." Where the game goes wrong, however, is in ignoring the ancient proverb that people will gladly swallow a big lie while bristling at a minor fib.
The game falters when it expects us to suspend our disbelief in the mundane.
It expects us to believe - without explanation - that people who Link has lived alongside and worked with don't know him as anything but a random traveler. The villagers in Hateno? Nothing. Bolson, who built Link's house? Nothing. Stable masters who have taken care of Link's horses and can even still have them in their possession? Nothing. Even Hestu, who should remember Link as one of the few people who can see him? Nothing.
Apart from the Zora, pretty much the only minor NPC's who remember him are a handful of soldiers, the Sheikah, Rhondson and Hudson, and Kohga (homie's always got my back).
I understand that sequels have to strike a balance to avoid confusion among new players who know nothing about the original game, but Kohga's dialogue is a good example of how to handle that gracefully; it gives enough background on why he wants to fight Link without being overbearing. Why couldn't they have done the same for the rest of the NPC's?
Instead, they ask us to swallow a white lie - that everyone just forgot the guy who saved all of them.
And it just doesn't work.
It's the same for the Sheikah technology. They could have come up with the most outlandish explanation about how Maz Koshia grew to three hundred feet tall and waved his hand, causing all the ancient tech to vanish in blue light, and people would have accepted that. Instead, we're asked to believe that it just suddenly turned to dust and everybody just sort of shrugged their shoulders and forgot about it.
In the end, these are minor gripes to me. TOTK is still my favorite Zelda game despite its missteps. I have hundreds of hours in it and still enjoy playing. It just happens to suffer from the event horizon that makes games' flaws stand out more the closer they are to perfection. TOTK could have been perfect with just a little more time and effort.
