o/ Hi, I'm here to ask about pre-calamity Link holding resentment towards Zelda
(I really like your takes on their relationship between games, and I'm really curious about what you're cooking for this one!)
HI HELLO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING !! Get ready for my character study based off quite literally nothing but my beautiful mind <33
So, I'm replaying botw and I absolutely adore how the game characterizes all of its characters, but I have a particular love for botw link and how it characterizes him through absence and little hints of his childhood. What we know for a fact about him is that he showed skill at a very young age, four years old to be exact, when he was able to fight and win against a grown, trained knight. When he's around twelve years, he draws the master sword for the first time and is officially recognized as the hero of destiny by the entire kingdom. If you assume that Link was seventeen like Zelda when he became her appointed knight, that means that there was only five years inbetween him drawing the master sword, training, and then being responsible for- possibly- the most daunting task in all of hyrule: protecting the princess.
This was a task that he was expected to carry out at all hours of the day and, essentially, Zelda was his prime responsibility above all else. But, the fact still lies that Link was born into a family of knights, very possibly royal knights considering it would've been that much easier for Link's skill in childhood to be noticed. From the moment Link is born, his destiny has already been made for him, there is no conceivable way that he can avoid taking up the sword. Unlike most other preexisting Link's, he is born into a life where everything is already decided for him and he never has a moment where he chooses to take up the sword.
Ocarina of time? For a brief time, Link is a child and he has a home on kokori forest. Twilight princess? For his entire childhood and teenage life, Link was just a country boy who was good with kids and was dependable. Skyward sword? So much of the story is about how both Zelda and Link were kids before the story begun. Wind waker, spirit tracks, minish cap- so many of the Link's that have existed have lived completely normal lives and had a journey where they purposely took up the sword and chose to become heroes. Pre-calamity link though? He never had that. It's not even that hard of an assumption to come to that the moment it was discovered it could wield a sword so skillfully at a young age, he was thrown into training.
You don't just throw a twelve year old at the master sword unless you are absolutely positive without a shadow of a doubt that they are the fated hero. Being born into a knights family, I'm sure that this incarnation of Link has been training and has been told of his duty his entire life. In Zelda's entries, she even says that the reason Link is so quiet is because of the sheer amount of pressure and responsibility on his shoulders. To me, I interpret this as Link purposely not speaking up or having a voice of his own because he learned extremely early on that his body is not his own. Zelda resents Link, at least for a time, because she believes that the goddesses blessings practically hang off him. In her defense, they do, as the very symbol of the master sword on his back is enough proof that the goddesses had long since chosen him.
She resents him because he is the very symbol of her failures, all that she lacks in both skill and divinity, is embodied in him. She is born for a royal family with divinity in her blood, and yet she cannot hear the goddesses voice nor awaken her powers. Link is from a knights family, and he has succeeded in passing in every expectation that they've laid before his feet. The kingdom talks behind her back about her shortcomings, the kingdom preaches that the fated hero has been found. It is not hard to see just why Zelda resents Link so much in the beginning, because to her, he has everything she has ever wished for and more. At first, Zelda is preoccupied with her own troubles and it's only later that she is, as far as we know, the only one who has ever really asked him if he wishes things could be different. If he would've ever picked up the sword if he had the choice.
Which is such a heart-breaking question for many reasons, but one detail, for me, which makes it all the worse, is that I believe pre-calamity Link resents Zelda because she has at least achieved a taste of freedom. Personally, I like to believe that Link heard Hylia from a very young age and the act of becoming hero was taken from him to instead grow as a hero. Link never had a point in his life where he was allowed to breathe and choose what he wished, from everything from his own studies, his training, becoming knight, to becoming Zelda's personal knight. All of this was never in his control, but he exceeded in those expectations because the weight of just what the kingdom expected from him was that heavy. He never had a point where the weight was off of his shoulders, as it was that weight that straightened his spine and eventually made him silence himself. He learned at a very early age that his words, his choice, his very autonomy, was never important. Never was there a point that he was even allowed to focus on something that wasn't his expected destiny because he was the hero first and a child second.
Most assume the goddesses blessing to be a heady, beautiful gift, but I've always believed that Link secretly resented just how carefully the goddesses watched him. Where others preen for the goddesses blessings and gifts, he struggles to stand underneath the sheer weight of their gazes. He never had to earn the goddesses grace because it was forced upon him, and so, the very thing that Zelda resented him for was the very thing that he secretly despised.
In a way, I think Link began to resent Zelda in turn, but was just much better at hiding it, because he saw a girl who did not fully realize how much of a blessing it was to be free from the goddesses. Despite how much it was expected from her, she was still able to escape into the wild and chase after her true passions, which he dutifully followed her the entire time for. Personally, I think he came to resent her for this perceived freedom and escape, as well as how much she yearned for Hylia's blessing, despite it being nothing but a curse for him. More than anything though, I think he resents her, at least a little bit, for being able to speak up and fight back. It's something that he desperately wishes he could do himself, but he knows that he cannot and he's petrified about what would come out of him if he did open his mouth.
Link has had an entire lifetime of resentment, self-inflicted silence, expectations, surveillance, and a crippling sense of duty his entire life. All of these things are things Zelda shares as well, but in a way, I think he begins to resent her because she is a warped mirror of himself but with a handful more freedoms that he desperately yearns for. Yes, the weight of the kingdom is so very heavy for the both of them, but why would she destroy herself for the goddess? He wishes to tell her that it is not a weight that she should chase after, but instead cherish every moment that she is able to breathe without it. His destiny has long since been made, and he hates that she seems to desperate to destroy her own freedom with her own bare hands. It's a resentment born from envy, desperation, isolation, and a crippling sense of self-loathing from so desperately wishing that he had been given a moment to just be himself. His sense of identity is so loose because he has been told that he is a knight, a hero, the sword of hyrule, before he is Link, and for that... he hates and resents Zelda for wanting to throw away the one blessing that separates them. She has hope. He is damned, at least in his eyes.
This is all born from the thought that Link exists as an extension of Zelda where Zelda is actually able to exist on her own. Link seeing himself as a tool being passed from hand to hand and just wanting to be able to make a choice for himself. This is actually one of the big, BIG reasons I headcanon as to just why he's one of the most isolated, lone Links to exist because he craves the lack of eyes on him. He just wants to be a person man.
Not only that, but he purposely buries his own feelings because to acknowledge them is to acknowledge that something is wrong and that he's deeply unhappy of his fate. He resents Zelda, so he overcompensates by being over-protective and hovering over her so that he might beat back his resentment of her. If he buries his resentment and instead blames himself for even thinking those thoughts in the first place, then his own guilt will even further fuel his dutiful nature. It's a fucked up vicious cycle of his own guilt, resentment, and anger that he's drowning in the entire time !! And he'll never go out of his away to even mention it to Zelda because he doesn't want to burden her with his actual self !!!
