Poll: Would we all be cool with a female Link?

[monkey_man]

I'm sure i would care as much as I would when another different zelda game came out, IE nill, but I wonder why?
Why would it be so important to make link female? Would Zelda be then transformed into a male, to just change up the theme of boy saves damsel? Surely it would be a good change, considering the current male oriented, dominated and in a simple collection of words: unfair bigoted and stupid, world; This would not be a bad thing. But why a Zelda game? what would be the point? another cashcow for Nintendo? another blatant amount of "new" things to be done with a female link and male zelda, in all sorts of wacky spin-offs? why? Why can't a studio just develop a new IP with "boy gets saved by girl" as the main theme?

If that isn't what OP intended, then I'm just reduced to why? I don't see the need for a game with a female link. link's been male for as long as he's been link. Same as the Doctor, in Doctor Who. He could have been female for the last regeneration, it would canonically be possible. It's just unneeded. Why mess up the maintained continuity for something not very important?

I see the need for an increased female representation in games and gaming in general, but I play Tomb Raider, I played Fallout and Skyrim as a female character once or twice, I've been Chell. There are some strong females in games, we don't need to turn men into women for that. We could just do with more new IP's, having either a broad cast of mixed race or gender (like left4dead), or a game about a strong/dorky/smart/heroic/interesting/shy/whatever girl on an important mission to safe the world or something. it has been done, it has been proven to work.

So no, I would technically not have a problem with a female link. I just fail to see the entire point of having her. The roles could be reversed (it has been done I think, same goes for mario&peach), but swapping the genders? nah. It would just be "lol let's see if we can pull it off", or "lol, female representatives will net us money"

Or even just having a female link save a female zelda, a new IP would just be so much better. It would actually have a chance to be great. A woman rescuing another woman, not for love not for shits and giggles, but because she actually needs saving. If a game would do this, and would do this properly, it could shine.

 

[Islandbuffilo]

I've always wanted Zelda to go the way of a certain other popular Nintendo franchise and have the player select genders, considering that's the purpose of link from what I'm told, to be a link between the players and the game world.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I played both NES versions growing up and also Link to the Past, which imo is the best of the bunch. Of course then I bought a Playstation and never played another Zelda game.

I would definitely play a Zelda game with a female Link, provided it was on a platform I could play it obviously, and have no problem with it.

 

[FriedRicer]

I don't mind genders at all. But when it comes to Zelda there seems to be to ways it is exists- the "Legend" which is retold but continues differently- and the world of Hyrule we actually play in. The latter wouldn't bother me gender-wise but the former seems to feel like its supposed to have a repeat in a certain manner damsel in distress and all. It may not have began that way, but a sense of camp does seem to come from the LoZ now that makes me want the genders the way they are for the traditional implications they once reflected.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Why make Link female? Just for the sake of it? If you wanted a female character you could, you know, make a new character

Because Nintendo can't make new things, GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Jeez.

*Would (probably) buy a Wii-U for Fem Link*

 

[Lazule]

I wouldn't care... Link has little personality anyway. (Except Toon Link he is cool)

Also a female Link would be like asking for more The Legend of Zelda hentai, I'm down...

 

[infinity_turtles]

I'm against swapping out character details like this in general. I find the gamingentertainment industry gives too few fucks about brand clarity as is. Now, as a proper spin-off? I have less issues with that, but still think they'd be better served by a Zelda/Sheik, Gerudo, or even Midna game.

 

[scw55]

I don't think there is nothing at all that can stop Link being a female and Zelda being a male
(in less those names are gender specific in Hyrule-Universe).

Since the story is that they essentially are consistently reincarnated, there's nothing stopping those beings from being reborn as any gender. Since it seems to be genetic inheritance as well. You'd never get a pure-blood Zora being Link as an example.

It'd be interesting how Nintendo would deal with it. Early Link seemed slightly effeminate anyway with his short-cut tunic...

It would make the sex-roles more equal. But it might not affect the gender roles. I wouldn't want the male Zelda to be effeminate and female Link to be butch, because that would just say "manly traits = strong, female traits = weak". Pirate Zelda gaves us a strong female character that wasn't masculin... and then she discovered her destiny and devolved into a china doll.

I'm pretty sure either genders are equally capable of being kidnapped/spirit spliced from their body by a super demi-god, so they wouldn't need to make Male Zelda a wet blanket.

But surely a better game would be a Female Zelda rescuing a Male Link? Why gender swap when you can just role reversal?

 

[garcian67]

I would avoid using Sages to prove the connection between Divinity and Feminity. Sages seem to need a medium in order to use the power of the Goddesses (OOT: Medallions WW: Intruments TP: Mirror of Twilight, or Zelda herself), just like Link.

The sage arguments were weaker overall, which is why they were reasons 4-6, rather than 1-3.

That gender shouldn't play any role in the duties of being a Sage is emphasized pretty heavily. Although girls are the majority for OOT, there are none in TP. Makor is characterized as a guy and his predecessor was a guy as well. It's also established that until a Sage's duties are over they cannot marry.

Makor was indeed characterized as a guy, as was the deku tree in both wind waker and OoT, to me, this seems more to imply a strong connection between the earth itself and manhood. Supported by the presence of many other natural spirits all being male (valoo, Lord Jabu Jabu, all 4 spirits of light). This point is rather secondary, however, which is why I chose to ignore Makor. This can even be used as another argument for a male hero, (Hero in green garb. Green -> earth. Earth->male) but I chose to use the logical converse (sacred-female rather than profane->male) as I thought the evidence was stronger in that direction.

As another side point, the sages in Twilight Princess are only seen as statues and they are all old dead white dudes. Why I brought up the female sages was largely to show that not all sages are male, which would hurt the argument much more than some sages being female helps it.

The existence of girl Sages supports the idea that a girl could be Link, since they are limited to using objects to work with divine power, despite their femininity. I don't think it's enough support, since the Sages' traits are tied closer to Zelda's than Link's.

The existence and gender of the sages does not, directly, support a link of any gender. The sages are the guardians of the sacred realm, which makes them more casual observers to the cyclical struggle than actual participants. They do have a stronger connection to the divine than a normal citizen would, as their destiny is intertwined with that of the triforce, but they themselves aren't tools used directly by the goddesses (as the hero and Zelda are). The sages are servants to the hero and hylia, and in that capacity do not need to possess strong magical power on their own. The exception being Rauru.

It is important to note that all (iirc) of the sages claim descent from a past sage. In this case, and seeing there is a different distribution of genders depending on which game you look at, which may be taken as evidence of the duties of a sage being gender-independent, but the total number of sages, along with the elements they embody, has also changed throughout the series, so it is rather difficult to make a conclusion on this point.

I'd drop the 6th point as well. There are a lot of different types of magic in LoZ. The magic that Twinrova uses seems to be based off the ice and fire rod designs, which were made by Hylians. The magic Great Fairies and Zelda taps into is the divine stuff.

The 6th point is rather weak and I debated including it myself, it's probably about as strong as saying Link's Grandma in wind waker makes magic soup.

Off-Topic: Nice job making this thread into an interesting read. Olas too.

Thank you!

And, to Olas and everyone else, Thank you for the excellent discussion.

 

[Weaver]

I don't think there's anything lorewise that forbids the hero of time from being female.

 

[Vegosiux]

I dunno, would we all be cool with a male Lara Croft?

Oh wait, Uncharted. (Still a different franchise tho at least).

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

I voted no because I'd much rather have Zelda be featured in a game of her own where she's saving Link this time, than just a Link with XX chromosomes. It's an interesting idea that I think should happen down the road, but giving more attention to the series' namesake would be much more interesting.