...ok but now I'm actually curious about your issues with TOTK👀
okay so to be per, fectly clear: Tears of the Kingdom is a really fun game. I've been playing a lot of it, aimlessly wandering around, exploring the Depths, finding shrines, doing side quests, and so on. At this point I've cleared the four regional quests, a bonus mainline quest I wasn't supposed to know about yet I found the shrine early and had enough hearts to open the door, what can I say, I'm curious, I have the Master Sword, and I think most of what's left is armor upgrades and wrapping up the main story.
But also I have been spoiled since the game came out about what's in store and boy do I see a lot of similar narrative issues to my gripes with Fire Emblem.
So we might as well start off small with how TotK actively rewrites its history in ways that are even more extreme than Skyward Sword. Skyward Sword introduced Hylia and Demise as concepts, with Hylia inheriting the Triforce from the Golden Goddesses of Din, Nayru, and Farore and tasked with protecting it, while Demise appeared as a demonic entity intent on taking that power for himself. As of Skyward Sword, Zelda was written as the mortal reincarnation of Hylia, thereby retroactively contextualizing her powers. The Triforce has been a power source sought after and fought over through every prior entry in the series, and even though BotW didn't make outright reference to it, the Triforce was clearly present on Zelda's hand when her powers awakened and appeared in full when she sealed Calamity Ganon at the end of the game.
And Tears of the Kingdom does away with it completely.
Hylia is mentioned as the only goddess. The Golden Goddesses aren't referred to at all. There is no Triforce at all, it's instead been replaced by the Zonai 'Secret Stones' even in the ancient past, despite the fact that we saw the Triforce at the end of the last game. It was right there. Zelda is also no longer the reincarnation of the goddess: instead her powers are re-explained as being the product of the historic marriage between the Zonai Sage of Light and the Hylian Sage of Time, giving her command over both (but she's considered only the Sage of Time for some reason?).
Also, BotW pretty heavily implied that Hyrule was a matriarchy: it's the queens and princesses who have the sacred power, so it stands to reason that Zelda's mother was actually the one in charge of Hyrule before her death, and the king only stepped into the leadership role on a temporary basis until Zelda came into her powers (hence that pointed "heir to a throne of nothing but failure" remark in one of the memories). But despite there being a Hylian queen right there in the ancient past, the game firmly establishes that Rauru is the one with the power, and Sonia is just his consort, a priestess who he chose to marry.
And then there's the Shiekah. Throughout all of BotW we were surrounded by these amazing machines, ancient technology crafted by the Shiekah and unearthed in working condition after a myriad in the ground which are still running and wreaking havoc a hundred years after the Calamity. We start the game in a Shiekah Shrine that literally saved Link's life and allowed him to recover from what should have been fatal wounds, though it did take a hundred years to do so.
And all of that is gone in TotK. Not a trace of it remains: the shrines have all been wiped from the face of the earth, the Divine Beasts are nowhere to be found, the Shiekah Towers have evaporated into thin air -- and the shrine that saved our lives is completely gone, replaced by a hot spring. It still bears the name of the Shrine of Awakening, but none of the miraculous technology remains.
Personally, the idea that either Purah or Zelda would consider the Skyview Towers worthy of dismantling that Shrine completely shatters my suspension of disbelief. They're both scientists: they should want to study all of that in detail to understand how it works, not destroy it for glitchy impersonations of the old towers I hate the Skyview Tower miniquests so much.
(Let me tell you, it was absolutely chilling for me to get to Rito Village and see an empty place where I clearly remembered there being a shrine. The Shiekah presence in history has basically been wiped out in TotK outside of Kakariko Village, and I don't like what that says considering that the Shiekah were also victims of a genocide by the ancient king of Hyrule.)
And then there's the imperialism. I have my issues with Three Houses and every ending needing Fodlan to be united under a single banner, though it's most egregious in CF where Edelgard's stated purpose is returning Fodlan to its proper state unified under the Imperial Standard. TotK is worse. There have been some excellent breakdowns of the narrative implications, touching on everything from the loaded imagery and black-and-white narrative purpose of Ganondorf and the Gerudo (dark-skinned evil desert dwellers who oppose the good and glorious worshipers of the goddess...where have I heard that before...) to the game showing outright that the other races of Hyrule were treated as lesser vassals in the ancient past (the Sages being masked and therefore erasing their individual identities, receiving the Secret Stones that Rauru had been hoarding only when Rauru needed help to fight Ganondorf and thereupon swearing their very lives and the lives of their people to him and his empire???). They're great analyses, they've been living in my brain for weeks.
But I think the thing that I'm most mad about is that the narrative bends over backwards to keep anything from changing. At the start of the game, Link's arm is so badly damaged by the Gloom that he nearly dies and he spends the rest of the game with Rauru's arm in place of his own...but then, in the end, he magically gets his original arm back no worse for the wear. Zelda, in an attempt to empower and restore the Master Sword, turns herself into a dragon, a process that we are told outright in the narrative will cause her to lose herself and is therefore irreversible...but then, in the end, she magically returns to her human form thanks to her ghost ancestors somehow reversing this supposedly irreversible process. And on top of all that, Hyrule itself is exactly the same when all is said and done: there's no change to the power structures, no independence for the other races who choose to come together in the spirit of cooperation like we saw at Tarrey Town -- instead, the four Sages once again swear their support and fealty to the Princess of Hyrule.
Personally? I like a narrative where the characters and the world change over the course of it. That's one of the things that I thought was so meaningful about BotW: while most of the gameplay takes place in the present, the true start of the game is 100 years in the past, allowing us to see how the Calamity affected Hyrule, the devastation it wrought and the continued struggles of those who survived through the century that followed. We end the game with Zelda once more free, where she had been locked in combat with the Calamity; with the spirits of the Champions at peace, where they had been trapped by the Blight within the Divine Beasts; and with Hyrule finally at peace and beginning to recover now that the Calamity has been sealed away. I still think it's ridiculous that they don't actually show any of Link's scars in the game (especially since we are at one point forced to strip to prove that we are who we say we are, and they say point blank I would recognize those scars anywhere when there are no fucking scars), but at least things have changed over the course of the narrative!
But nothing changes in TotK. The status quo remains untouched and unquestioned. And it just feels...bad to me. Insincere, maybe. Unrealistic, sterilized, manufactured. It's a narrative that says there's nothing to question, that everything going back to the way it always was is the right and proper way of things, because clearly the Hyrule Empire is the right and proper rule. And I just don't like that.
ok so I used to have a Pinterest. haven't used it in... 7 years now? so anyway I had an SSB board on that Pinterest and. Awakening pins kept on showing up on my page.
eventually a pin about Robin and Grima (it was some shitpost about Robin being a dragon or smth) showed up and I was like, "SMASH NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT THAT" so I looked up an Awakening playthrough on YouTube, got really interested, and proceeded to play the game on emulator on my old-ass laptop. and the rest is history
27. Any fanfics/fan content you'd recommend? (You can plug your own stuff it's fine)
aight gimme a sec
Angelica Tea by Quill_and_Muse: A letter written by transmasc!Ashe to an alive Christophe! really soft and sweet
Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown by Good_beans: introspective story where Lukas helps Alm deal with his mess of emotions after the end of the war
Affectionately Yours by Iturbide: Chrobin AU where Robin is the ruler of Plegia and Chrom's been invited to peace talks! lots of really cool worldbuilding for Plegia!
The Fortress That Walks by Nosferatank: Echoes Outsider POV with worldbuilding, Alm angst, and a wonderfully characterized POV OC
Name and Identity by RandomPanda: Alm having various identity crises throughout the game :)
Alm Calls Tatiana "Mom" and Dies by PinkHydrangea: exactly what it says on the tin. some silliness, some hurt/comfort, I didn't know I needed Alm-Tatiana-Zeke found family until I read this
The Hour of Hauntings and Whispered Prayers by WindTossedCourage: Mercedes bullies Gilbert for being a deadbeat
sothis take the wheel by PrinceWinter: YuriAshe chatfic where Sylvain acts as wingman (I know you don't like Sylvain but bear with me here). Ashe drunk texts Sylvain about his crush on Yuri and Sylvain gets into shenanigans trying to get them together. lots of silliness
Dagger in a Thicket of Flowers and Alloy by ghostchibi: Dagger in a Thicket of Flowers is a bit of a Rafal character study plus the Fell kids becoming siblings. Alloy is an exploration of Alear having OSDD and navigating being part of a system. both really cool, highly recommend
there's also my stuff. lmao. I have 1 Echoes fic and everything else is Engage
I've come to make an announcement: Shadow the Hedgehog's a bitch-ass motherfucker. He pissed on my fucking wife. That's right. He took his hedgehog fuckin' quilly dick out and he pissed on my FUCKING wife, and he said his dick was THIS BIG, and I said that's disgusting. So I'm making a callout post on my Twitter.com. Shadow the Hedgehog, you got a small dick. It's the size of this walnut except WAY smaller. And guess what? Here's what my dong looks like. That's right, baby. Tall points, no quills, no pillows, look at that, it looks like two balls and a bong. He fucked my wife, so guess what, I'm gonna fuck the earth. That's right, this is what you get! My SUPER LASER PISS! Except I'm not gonna piss on the earth. I'm gonna go higher. I'm pissing on the MOOOON! How do you like that, OBAMA? I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT! You have twenty-three hours before the piss DROPLETS hit the fucking earth, now get out of my fucking sight before I piss on you too!
On one hand... I am begging Intsys to give us character customization because I absolutely hate this hair
On the other hand, I am very pleased to see the artstyle is not the same as in Three Houses and is much closer to the one used in Awakening/Fates during the cutscenes (although not as nice, especially when it comes to the eyes of younger characters). I'm not crazy about the designs of any character we’ve seen though.
But eh, I've seen Marth and Celica in that trailer, so if they let us use Mamui (or Aqua or Ryouma or something) in some shape or form, I'll probably be getting it. Odd how it seems to follow the same principle as Heroes with the whole "gathering characters from the past to aid us defeat the big bad dragon" o: I'm not against it, just curious what it's really about
But for real... blue and red with yellow accents... :/
Alm is a huge dork and very consistent about it. Puns (I fucking love puns) and bad wordplay, staring into the sun, cats, you know. He's a bid smarter than people realize. He's got one of the best character designs of the FE lords (y'know, Hidari).
Emperor Albein II!
when I first saw SoV’s cover art I thought Alm was a girl
The bad:
Underutilized potential. More on that in a second.
All the people I ship romantically with this character
Celica, of course. Opposites in many ways, identical in others, separated but both knew they would and must reunite. They will have many children, own yet more cats, make terrible puns, and occasionally argue bitterly about politics for the rest of their lives. Perfection.
The other one I entertain is Clair. They did clearly have a thing for one another, and were it not for the "hero of prophecy" situation, would've been happy together. Probably with less drama.
I mean
My non-romantic OTP for this character
Lukas, the voice perpetually saying, "Alm no--" and occasionally being listened to. He's very good as an older brother figure to Alm, a friend-mentor who gives good advice even though he struggles with understanding people on his own.
Runner up is Mathilda. A sort of goddess-like figure to Alm and the younger folks. Lukas and Clive do much more of the army's management; Alm and Mathilda are fighters to the core. They "get" each other.
My unpopular opinion about this character
I land squarely in the "Alm should've had a nasty side" camp, but to bring out his compassionate traits. He runs off to war wanting to protect the innocent from the bad people in power, but it curdles into wanting to crush Desaix, the Empire and the Duma Faithful, damn the cost.
Celica is a rounded character with some very strong flaws - if Alm had his own to match them, the story would've been much stronger. SoV is a story about opposites - Duma/Mila, Rigel/Zofia, many others. Celica blindly supports the gods while Alm is fine smashing them because their system isn't working.
shameless plug
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
Would've been interesting if Act 3 was Celica and Alm fighting together in the Zofian civil war, then the split coming when they disagree about what to do next.
Other one: Alm's mother is all but stated to be alive in the CD Drama. They deserve a reunion.
What are KH3's callbacks to KH1 you keep referencing? Not trying to be rude or anything, I just haven't played KH1 in years so I'm kinda curious.
Sure thing! These are just at the top of my head, there’s probably more haha
There’s the funny-face special (the big Sora smile in Traverse Town) that Sora did again for Boo in Monstropolis to make her laugh
They re-enforce that the Gummi Ship runs on positive emotion cause they compare it to the laugh canisters in Monstropolis (Donald in Traverse Town saying “This boat runs on happy faces!”)
Mickey quoting the passage found in World Terminus (granted he did quote it in 0.2, not KH3, but 0.2 was originally supposed to be apart of KH3 before KH3 got too big). Really a lot of 0.2 feels like homage to KH1
Sora saying he was a lot like Rapunzel when he finally left Destiny Islands
Ansem SoD’s speech in the Keyblade Graveyard just in general felt like closure since he was KH1′s antagonist
They bring back the big deal that is the World Order, something that kinda faded away with recent titles.
To be honest I stopped playing Heroes two years ago because I felt it was becoming more and more time-consuming (not to mention the space on my phone). While I don't regret quitting the game I really dig the setting and the possible interactions between the characters (yes, even the alts), so I just wanted to thank you and all the other writers for this great blog! Have you all a great day!
