sorry if this is out of nowhere, but do you have any thoughts on green link as a character? i'm slowly getting back into FS and i'm curious!
Sure!
I think Green can be a bit tricky, ‘cause he’s sort of the archetype of the leader/hero, right? And Generic Hero Protagonists can frequently be a bit... well, generic. Two-dimensional. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to him! You’ve just got to look a bit harder for it :)
Green is a very caring, empathetic person. Green is the one who stands frozen in Hyrule Castle, unable to draw his sword against what could be magical constructs or could be mind-controlled allies. Green is the one to tell Shadow "You’re one of us. You’re our friend.” Green is the one who sits on the porch with Erune and listens to what’s bothering her, offers reassurance and advice.
(Red is also empathetic, but the thing with Red is that he’s SO empathetic, he’s in danger of getting overwhelmed by emotion to the point of being unable to help the situation much. In a nutshell: confronted with a crying person, Red can easily become flustered, and might start crying as well; Green will fetch a tissue box and a glass of water.)
The flip side of this, is that sometimes Green can use ‘looking after other people’ as an excuse to not look after himself. I wrote a fic centered on this idea once, actually. As long as he spends all his time dealing with everyone else’s problems, he never has to slow down and face his own. Right? Right. This definitely won’t have consequences.
Green feels like he has a lot to live up to. He had a pretty rude awakening after drawing the sword, going from being Link (not wanting to listen to the Captain or wait for the other Knights, running ahead to do things his own way) to being Green: responsible for a team, and suddenly very aware of how big a responsibility that is, and how difficult it is when your team acts like... well, like Link.
He looks up to his dad, and he looks up to the legendary heroes of the past, and... he hopes he measures up.
(On the lighter side of this... I imagine Green really likes all those stories of legendary heroes. Shadow and Vio are definitely the dramatic duo, but that doesn’t mean the others don’t also have their moments... and Green definitely has his moments stepping into the role of The Hero, capital letters, and just... having some fun over-acting it a bit.)
Green is resourceful. (This is not actually a trait unique to him - all Links are resourceful - but I think it’s worth pointing out.) He was the first to grab a weapon from the toy chest in the Dark World; he tried to use the pots of oil in the pyramid to burn his apparently-untouchable opponent; he used Vio’s tactics against him, in order to get close enough to stomp Vio’s foot in their duel.
Green has a sense of humor - again, not a trait unique to him, but not one to overlook, either. He quips while fighting, he gets sarcastic when things don’t go his way. This can tie back into his empathetic/good leader aspects, too - using humor to boost morale and cheer others up!
And because my mind has been on reverse!AU lately: Mirror Green is all this, but jaded. (Hah, accidental pun :P ) He is fiercely protective of and loyal to the other Links. But instead of being friendly to new people, he treats everyone outside of his little family like a potential threat - because in his experience, they are. And if it were only himself he risked, by trusting others, maybe he could take the chance. But it’s not. So he’s... snappish.
