What's funny is that having Zelda be an actual strong woman has been one of the biggest desires of the fanbase for years. With her pathetic portrayal in the Breath/Tears games being one of her lowest and most easily mocked points.
Shit its why Tetra is the only version of Zelda anyone actually ever liked outside coom reasons. Same with Midna who filled the role of "Princess" for the majority of the game in a game where Zelda is basically nonexistent.
So what has plagued the series for so long, and what will probably protect this movie, is Nintendo's absolute terror at ever remotely straying from the formula for a Zelda game. They only did Breath 10 years after Open World games figured it all out for them and it still feels like the same Zelda game but with Shrines instead of Skultulas and forced padding called "durability."
Zelda has always been a supportive character, even when she took a more active role in it. She represents femininity in both her demure appearance and nurturing behavior. Link and Ganon represent two forms of masculinity, with one using strength to achieve power while the other using it for nobility.
Post modernists hate femininity, and when they cry out for Zelda to not be a damsel, what they really mean is that they want her to be less feminine in both appearance and personality. They want her to be someone like Aloy from the Horizon games or Ellie/Abby in TLOU2, just a boring as dish water lesbian whos sole purpose is to just exist to challenge "patriarchal norms".
This subversion/deconstruction has plagued media for so long, that even a simple hero saving the princess story is now seen as fresh again. I think this is one of the reasons why BOTW/TOTK succeeded so much despite there being even more of an outcry from the vocal minority to make Zelda the main character.
I don't think Nintendo will have creative control over the Zelda movie, they're mostly just producing it while only consulting with stuff like the lore. Just look at the godawful cartoon from the early 90's where Zelda is a frigid bitch and Link is a sleazy idiot who stumbles his way to victory, now just imagine what modern western entertainment will do to Zelda. They already made Mario an idiot, Luigi the damsel, and Peach being the mary sue who has to show Mario the ropes while later rescuing herself.
Also I hope nobody is cooming to Tetra considering shes only like 10.
She represents femininity in both her demure appearance and nurturing behavior. Link and Ganon represent two forms of masculinity, with one using strength to achieve power while the other using it for nobility.
She is also the holder of the literal god power of Wisdom, which is what she is supposed to represent more than anything else. Despite this, her entire history has been constant and chronic retardation and idiocy on a level that, while normal for a damsel princess, rejects the very notion of any Wisdom.
Strong doesn't have to mean literally physically capable. It can in fact just be smart enough to not fall for the obvious traps of the guy who is supposed to represent Meatheadedness and his army of braindead minions. Strong of mind, to contrast Link's strong of heart and Ganon's strong of body.
Peach from Paper Mario 64 (and TYD) was captured nearly the entire game, yet still managed to both work her own angle and assist you from her cage while still needing to be rescued. Heck even Tetra was more than capable until she became Zelda in her mainline game.
There is a far gulf between "make her the real hero badass" like Twitter wants and "make her a useless idiot who sits in the background waiting for help everytime" like she keeps ending up. But, since most people kneejerk react to those Twitter people and feel the need to 180 whatever they say, we are now going to be stuck with people claiming the latter as their genuine opinion.
What? How was she presented as retarded? She still helped out a ton, its just that she doesn't possess the strength to fight back. In Zelda 1 she destroyed the triforce of wisdom and scattered it across eight dungeons to prevent Ganon from finding it, all while sending Impa to guide Link into finding them.
Ganon is also not a "meathead", he was a thief who ascended the throne while leading an army of monsters, all while managing to obtain the Triforce of power. Hyrules armies all fell before him, and even Link with the Triforce of courage and the master sword still needed some support to put him down, so it makes no sense to expect Zelda on her own to outdo him. Not to mention Ganon in some cases can even locate Zelda telepathically, so hiding isn't even an option.
She already does more than enough in the games as a supporting character. Making her more like Link just completely undermines her archetype of both being a damsel and a supporting character.
Make it believable. When I heard about Peach saving Mario in the movie and athletically clearing courses, I completely lost interest. She is a princess, yet she's also basically the most athletic, physically adept person in the world? Just another "strong" Mary Sue without flaws, because showing a woman failing or not be the most competent person in every situation is a sin now, apparently. Can't have a man being shown as stronger, faster and smarter, never.
With Zelda, they can't isekai Link. He is a Hylian, someone from the same world. If Zelda can affect the outcome of the quest from her gilded cage in the castle, then absolutely, go for it. If she has abilities or knowledge beyond a normal princess, give us a reasonable explanation. Did she analyze notes left by her departed mother like in Spirit Tracks? Did she receive Sheikah training for 7 years like in OoT? Did she live her life leading a pirate crew she inherited from her parents like in Wind Waker? Just make it believable. Because making her able to traverse perilous obstacles with superhuman athetic abilities has never been her suit, and would make no sense if she's been living in a castle all her life. Acting like a tomboy and sneaking out occasionally wouldn't be enough to make it make sense, either. Not for someone whose life was mostly spent sitting down, learning manners and how to rule a kingdom by her retainers who do all the manual labour.
When I heard about Peach saving Mario in the movie and athletically clearing courses
Despite the common narrative around here, that's not really how it goes down. She makes an offhand line that jokingly suggests she one shot the course he just did. And she has lived in the kingdom her whole life compared to his one day, so it would be fucking dumb if she couldn't parkour around the bizzaro architecture the world has.
Its the most believable thing possible, because they decided to Isekai a regular human Mario into the game world while she spent her entire life in it. And after aforementioned training course he is for the most part on her level (despite being half her size) despite not having years of experience to back it up.
But perhaps I actually played Mario games outside the old mainlines, so seeing Peach able to actually run and do stuff like she does in all the spinoffs and most of the non-Odyssey recent games didn't trigger any alarms to me as outlandish.
The entire Kong section where she fails to accomplish the one thing she went there for despite it being her idea, and Mario instead steps up and wins them over through his skill and ability. And when he manages to get rid of the Big Bob-omb, and him and Luigi defeat Bowser in the climax. The only time he is ever shown to be lacking is during the obstacle course which is a literal training montage to justify a regular human learning to platform, and he is otherwise a capable if out of his element Isekai protagonist.
The only time we see her do anything remotely useful is during the wedding, where she was going along with it until a distraction arrived and they as a team fought back.
That's the thing about actually watching a movie instead of just hearing about it from people repeating a narrative they also heard. You can actually name things about it to support your position.
What's funny is that having Zelda be an actual strong woman has been one of the biggest desires of the fanbase for years. With her pathetic portrayal in the Breath/Tears games being one of her lowest and most easily mocked points.
Shit its why Tetra is the only version of Zelda anyone actually ever liked outside coom reasons. Same with Midna who filled the role of "Princess" for the majority of the game in a game where Zelda is basically nonexistent.
So what has plagued the series for so long, and what will probably protect this movie, is Nintendo's absolute terror at ever remotely straying from the formula for a Zelda game. They only did Breath 10 years after Open World games figured it all out for them and it still feels like the same Zelda game but with Shrines instead of Skultulas and forced padding called "durability."
Zelda has always been a supportive character, even when she took a more active role in it. She represents femininity in both her demure appearance and nurturing behavior. Link and Ganon represent two forms of masculinity, with one using strength to achieve power while the other using it for nobility.
Post modernists hate femininity, and when they cry out for Zelda to not be a damsel, what they really mean is that they want her to be less feminine in both appearance and personality. They want her to be someone like Aloy from the Horizon games or Ellie/Abby in TLOU2, just a boring as dish water lesbian whos sole purpose is to just exist to challenge "patriarchal norms".
This subversion/deconstruction has plagued media for so long, that even a simple hero saving the princess story is now seen as fresh again. I think this is one of the reasons why BOTW/TOTK succeeded so much despite there being even more of an outcry from the vocal minority to make Zelda the main character.
I don't think Nintendo will have creative control over the Zelda movie, they're mostly just producing it while only consulting with stuff like the lore. Just look at the godawful cartoon from the early 90's where Zelda is a frigid bitch and Link is a sleazy idiot who stumbles his way to victory, now just imagine what modern western entertainment will do to Zelda. They already made Mario an idiot, Luigi the damsel, and Peach being the mary sue who has to show Mario the ropes while later rescuing herself.
Also I hope nobody is cooming to Tetra considering shes only like 10.
She is also the holder of the literal god power of Wisdom, which is what she is supposed to represent more than anything else. Despite this, her entire history has been constant and chronic retardation and idiocy on a level that, while normal for a damsel princess, rejects the very notion of any Wisdom.
Strong doesn't have to mean literally physically capable. It can in fact just be smart enough to not fall for the obvious traps of the guy who is supposed to represent Meatheadedness and his army of braindead minions. Strong of mind, to contrast Link's strong of heart and Ganon's strong of body.
Peach from Paper Mario 64 (and TYD) was captured nearly the entire game, yet still managed to both work her own angle and assist you from her cage while still needing to be rescued. Heck even Tetra was more than capable until she became Zelda in her mainline game.
There is a far gulf between "make her the real hero badass" like Twitter wants and "make her a useless idiot who sits in the background waiting for help everytime" like she keeps ending up. But, since most people kneejerk react to those Twitter people and feel the need to 180 whatever they say, we are now going to be stuck with people claiming the latter as their genuine opinion.
What? How was she presented as retarded? She still helped out a ton, its just that she doesn't possess the strength to fight back. In Zelda 1 she destroyed the triforce of wisdom and scattered it across eight dungeons to prevent Ganon from finding it, all while sending Impa to guide Link into finding them.
Ganon is also not a "meathead", he was a thief who ascended the throne while leading an army of monsters, all while managing to obtain the Triforce of power. Hyrules armies all fell before him, and even Link with the Triforce of courage and the master sword still needed some support to put him down, so it makes no sense to expect Zelda on her own to outdo him. Not to mention Ganon in some cases can even locate Zelda telepathically, so hiding isn't even an option.
She already does more than enough in the games as a supporting character. Making her more like Link just completely undermines her archetype of both being a damsel and a supporting character.
Make it believable. When I heard about Peach saving Mario in the movie and athletically clearing courses, I completely lost interest. She is a princess, yet she's also basically the most athletic, physically adept person in the world? Just another "strong" Mary Sue without flaws, because showing a woman failing or not be the most competent person in every situation is a sin now, apparently. Can't have a man being shown as stronger, faster and smarter, never.
With Zelda, they can't isekai Link. He is a Hylian, someone from the same world. If Zelda can affect the outcome of the quest from her gilded cage in the castle, then absolutely, go for it. If she has abilities or knowledge beyond a normal princess, give us a reasonable explanation. Did she analyze notes left by her departed mother like in Spirit Tracks? Did she receive Sheikah training for 7 years like in OoT? Did she live her life leading a pirate crew she inherited from her parents like in Wind Waker? Just make it believable. Because making her able to traverse perilous obstacles with superhuman athetic abilities has never been her suit, and would make no sense if she's been living in a castle all her life. Acting like a tomboy and sneaking out occasionally wouldn't be enough to make it make sense, either. Not for someone whose life was mostly spent sitting down, learning manners and how to rule a kingdom by her retainers who do all the manual labour.
Despite the common narrative around here, that's not really how it goes down. She makes an offhand line that jokingly suggests she one shot the course he just did. And she has lived in the kingdom her whole life compared to his one day, so it would be fucking dumb if she couldn't parkour around the bizzaro architecture the world has.
Its the most believable thing possible, because they decided to Isekai a regular human Mario into the game world while she spent her entire life in it. And after aforementioned training course he is for the most part on her level (despite being half her size) despite not having years of experience to back it up.
But perhaps I actually played Mario games outside the old mainlines, so seeing Peach able to actually run and do stuff like she does in all the spinoffs and most of the non-Odyssey recent games didn't trigger any alarms to me as outlandish.
Oh? Then tell me. Is there any point whatsoever in the movie where Mario saves Peach? Or does anything better than her? How often does she save him?
The entire Kong section where she fails to accomplish the one thing she went there for despite it being her idea, and Mario instead steps up and wins them over through his skill and ability. And when he manages to get rid of the Big Bob-omb, and him and Luigi defeat Bowser in the climax. The only time he is ever shown to be lacking is during the obstacle course which is a literal training montage to justify a regular human learning to platform, and he is otherwise a capable if out of his element Isekai protagonist.
The only time we see her do anything remotely useful is during the wedding, where she was going along with it until a distraction arrived and they as a team fought back.
That's the thing about actually watching a movie instead of just hearing about it from people repeating a narrative they also heard. You can actually name things about it to support your position.
Zelda was fucking awesome in Hyrule Warriors.
Non-canon, I know. And I'm a Musou fan anyway.