I reblogged poll of underrated LU characters with most of this rant, but you know what, I want to make an original post because I feel like making this easier to read.
Wind is underrated and disrespected often in the LU fandom. Not constantly, but more than other Links.
Do you know how many fics literally sideline Wind? Like completely. They go "you go over here and away from the rest because you are baby and should not go through the horrors or this 'subject' is too mature for you"?!? Wind save Hyrule before gaining teenhood and saved a dying world, but dealing with “adult topics” is too much for him? I’m not talking sexual stuff, I do get that obviously. But anything else? Slavery, a 9-to-5 type job, or country politics, are we really going to act like Wind can’t handle those? That he has to be sidelined in most modern day AUs because “he’s a kid” and should never be anything more?
Do you know how many fics take away Spirit Tracks as a future adventure from Wind? Because ST!Link has to be his own person. And every time I’ve seen it done, Spirit’s existence come at the cost of Wind. Because Spirit is always basically identical to Wind. Most even make a point to decribe Spirit as Wind's "twin" except he's "more mature." Why? Idk, because he’s older than Wind while still being his twin? Because Spirit is in love with his Zelda? I have no idea. And when Spirit isn’t older than Wind, he’s younger and so takes the youngest spot away from Wind. The problem isn’t Wind being the youngest, it’s people treating him like he’s inept. Which they still treat him like baby even if Spirit is magically the youngest. For the record, I like Spirit Track the game a ton but for heaven's sake stop taking away from Wind for a character that isn't even canon to the LU! (Not fandom policing, just vocalizing frustrations.)
Do you know how many fics and situations I have read that defang Wind entirely? I have read fics where Wind marvels at Wild stealing weapons from enemies. Wind. The original Link that yoinked weapons from bokoblins and moblins. What is even going on? Not to mention how many act like he's the least stealthy Link when his first dungeon is all stealth based to many gamers' chagrin. And Wind keeps using that stealth throughout the game without items. I once read a fic where Warriors gets possessed, and Twilight has trauma from his Zelda, the woman Twilight spoke twice to, being possessed while fighting Warriors to defend Wind. Meanwhile Wind moped and blamed Twilight for fighting against Warriors and hurting him. Again Wind. Who had to fight a possessed Linebeck, his literal companion for that adventure. Wind in that fic was acting like Twilight was insane for fighting a possessed person. The mischaracterization simply to make another more popular Link look cooler makes me want to scream.
Win stabbed Ganondorf through the skull. This image exists:
He's the only Link to give Ganondorf such a brutal end. And yet, he's too baby to do what? Deal with horrors? Understand how to deal with a job? Not to mention that his world is more an apocalypse than any of the others except maaaybe Wild. His world literally went through a worldwide flood and was suffering from a lack of winds that cut off travel between islands isolating already small population. There were no fish in the entire Great Sea that can be eaten. The sea itself was cursed. Wind grew up in a land where people scrape and fight (not each other but scarcity) to survive. And he's a bright kid because he saw all that and chose to change it. He brought his world out of despair and into hope before becoming a teenager.
And yet too many in the LU fandom act like he's too young to know the cruelties of the world. Do you think in a world as desperate as the Great Sea, Wind was somehow sheltered from the world's cruelty? On an island that when his sister was kidnapped, the adults just shrugged their shoulders at the tragedy and let a child go save his sister on his own? When the two other girls kidnapped by Ganondorf were left for dead by their own fathers while Wind pushed on to bring his baby sister back? Where King of Red Lion (as much as I loved him) treated Wind initially like a poor replacement for a hero long gone?
Wind is not a baby. He is very child-like and bright eyed. But he's not like that because he did not see the darkness of the world. He saw it, and he chose to turn away and look at the light instead. Seeing Wind reduced to "funny pirate kid who doesn't know what consequences are" or "kid tag-along to the rest of the group" irritates me to no end. And it happens over and over and over again.
Wind is the most underrated Link at present, and it is frustrating. Please take my guy more seriously.
