TheRiddler said:
Hear me out:
It's not the same Link in all of these games, rather, several incarnations of the Great Hero/Chosen One/whatever. Who's to say that the incarnation of Link in the next Zelda game couldn't be female this time? I mean, women [b/]can[/b] use the Triforce. We've seen Zelda do it all the time.
It wouldn't feel too cheap or gimmicky as a female Mario or Kratos, as there isn't anything particularly masculine about Link. He's not really a muscleman and the green tunic is more or less unisex. He was pretty much intended to be merely a blank character for the player to project onto, and really the only personality aspects I can think of to define him are pretty gender neutral: brave, intelligent and competent in situations of crisis.
I mean, I'm not really saying that Nintendo necessarily [i/]should[/i] do this. I'm just wondering if you all think it would work if they did.
Sidenote: Are there other characters to whom this would apply? Where gender/race/sexuality/etc are so insignificant that changing them would leave the overall character unscathed? Off the top of my head: Chell(Portal), Master Chief (Halo) and Kirby (well, Kirby).
My basic attitude is that Link refers to a specific character, who happens to be a guy. Changing his gender is a no-no since it simply won't be Link anymore, even if the concept is one of reincarnation and so on. Link comes with a specific image and expectation. It's sort of like why I complained about them making Heimdall black in the "Thor" movies, Marvel's Heimdall is a specific character who is not black, nothing more or less to it, changing things is nothing more than a PC stunt for the sake of performing one.
As I see things if you want a "female Link" then make a new game series with the same basic kind of gameplay and create a female character for it. Or perhaps actually just make a game with Zelda as the direct protagonist (or at least playable), much like Princess Peach wound up getting her own games.
In general if you like a specific kind of game but want a different kind of protagonist, make a new IP, if enough people agree with you, they will come to it on their own. Changing existing IPs radically does generate a lot of hype sadly, and can move units due to controversy, but generally does not wind up leaving behind much of positive value.
I can't find it right at the moment (though I'll probably run into it linked somewhere later when it's not important) but not too long ago I was reading some thing about "the dumbest hype changes in comics history" though that wasn't exactly the title. It was brought out in response to the re-launch of Ms. Marvel and people like Conan O'Brien getting yelled at for making fun of it. It featured such things as the so called "She-Punisher" which advertised itself as "because YOU demanded it" (with the big question of who this "you" they referred to actually was). Along with the somewhat snarky point that comics publishers are apparently getting dumber, both in terms of their general storylines, but also because at least in the past they had the brains to make it fairly clear it was only for a limited run or something they were doing briefly for the amusement value rather than a bona-fide attempt at a character reboot or intended permanent transfer of a mantle. In many cases the mantle never even really transferred, the claims were just based on a story technicality....
At any rate, I'm going off on massive tangents again... basically I'm all for another Zelda-type game with a new IP, but as far as actually making Link a girl, I see no point at all unless it's just to get attention. If an existing character doesn't do what you want, make a new one. The industry is too suck in it's own IPS and labels for it's own good as it is, and the last thing they need is more excuses to keep slapping the existing franchise names onto everything instead of actually creating something.
