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Out of the literal months I've spent watching youtube videos, a person who generally reads and enjoys video games.... this is one of the most sincere and thoughtful presentations I've experienced. Thank you for this.
Bro, no photosensitive epilepsy warning at 15:48? "Gee whiz I'm Jacob Geller and I'll warn you about spoilers but not imagery that causes dangerous epileptic seizures DA-DOYYY." BRUH. Like, Edit this pinned comment man or put it in the description or something! point that shit out, you don't know what sort of conditions your audience has that just want to listen to you talk about zelda and suddenly get brainzapped because of you?
Because even when the man should have found his peace he still seeks war because war is always on approach, peace never lasts and he has bound himself to it.
Link's Crossbow Training is the story of the hero of twilight falling into a deep sense of emptiness due to the lack of fighting after defeating Ganon, so he sets up a huge shooting gallery the size of Hyrule to fulfill the hole that has been created on his heart, but in the end, he will never achieve this, because it was just a Crossbow Training... Edit: why tf is that the only game where Link has a crossbow? Linkle doesn't count
Another reading of Majora's Mask is that death doesn't really separate us from the dead. We carry them with us, literally in the case of the game. There's a lot of hope in that thought
@@king_of_scotland not only that but a journey of self actualization and that shows that even people in his situation who have lost everything and we're always destined to, despite of that he persevered and ended up coming out of it better than ever having cope with the lost things of the past
@@king_of_scotland The ancient Norse believed everyone died twice, once when your heart and body stop, and again when your name is said for the last time. I've always found comfort in that thought.
I was a honestly incredibly baffled at the take this was a Link running away from his great expectations I was wondering if we even played the same game, but I need to step back and remind myself that the thing about writing is that they don't need to match your own expectations. Everyone can and will call their own interpretations and weave whatever calls out most to them. What you pull out tells more about you than what the story does itself and I think that's amazing
I saw someone mentioning this on some comments, the twilight hero by design is considered the edgiest version of Link, but ironically when you play the game he turns out to be the friendliest, he has a heartwarming smile that you never see on any other Link, the way he cares about his friends or even complete strangers, he's probably the most hopeful Link I've seen
... holy cow, he is. He's an unpretentious farm boy in love with his childhood sweetheart, he roams across the entire known world to rescue his friends (old and new), and carries the weight of the entire world while still honoring and encouraging all the people and different cultures he comes across. He even pets all the kitty cats!
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
I've always seen Twilight Princess Link as the Link who sees things the most realistically. All the tales of OOT seen through someone else's eyes. Through a less magical and more realistic lens. The Hero of Time long dead, teaching Link fighting lessons and harshly reprimands him if failing said lesson. Rotting and spiritual, but actually speaks in a way people didn't in OOT. Which shows us things were different than originally depicted. Many of the magical things in the world are seen, but not explained, leaving Link to wonder what happened in the past. Too much time has passed, and nobody is alive who knows. Like the murals depicting the Hero in the Arbiter's grounds and the Temple of Time. He's there, but we don't know what he did. We never will. TP had its flaws, but the story was decent. I wouldn't call it dark, just more of a practical take on a magical journey.
@@WyteNikesNLazerLitez the stalfos part is one theory. Don’t Forget Majora’s Mask: in that game he was supposed to search for a friend he can trust and see himself. BUUUUT! The other theory is that Termina and the 4 country are the purgatory and Link is dead but doesn’t want to accept it. Sadly it’s the most logical theory where you see the different phase of the acceptance of the death. Like the sadness, the deni and all. I don’t remember all of them. But you’re not wrong either, it says in the game OOT only Kokiri can travel the forest… but why did we got to the Forest temple…
Try to even imply this message in a _Warhammer 40K_ thread and enjoy the flood of "HERESY" responses and meme-centric threats of violence for daring to speak your mind.
@@alexschott2092 That's 'cause after they started writing lore into the sourcebooks and stitching the universe together into something coherent, they wrote it well and included a lot of actual themeing and such. WH40K hasn't been just violence for violence's sake since like, 1990.
I recently replayed Ocarina of Time and it shocked me how sad that game is. By the end of the game, all of Link's closest friends are gone or don't know why he is the hero. His closet companion abandons him and it feels like he's left hollow the land he saved and unable to find a home in it. He gives up everything, including his title, to stop Ganondorf gaining nothing in return. The greatest gift he gave to Hyrule was to make sure it never knew it was in danger while it steals his soul.
@@James11111 And turns out "Link" just means this really weird specific console command thing that *kind of* makes you have a boomerang maybe I guess? And the rules are impossible halfway through so half the video is spent purely on the theoretical, and yet it's still worth watching just for the humor.
Link can also never go back home again. Because he loses Navi (his connection to kokiri forest), if he returns to the lost woods, he will die and become a stalfos. As it turns out, the hero's shade in twilight princess is actually the link from ocarina of time, who had since become a stalfos after trying to return home to kokiri forest. Such a sad ending for a great hero story.
Considering that Miyamoto states that The Legend of Zelda was inspired by how he explored the countryside as a kid, it makes sense that a core of the series is, "There is a world out there! And while it can be dark and overwhelming at times, is also so so incredibly beautiful and fun"
"Oh I'm sorry, if you can't handle a bloody nose then I suggest you run home and hide under your bed. It's not safe here! There are wonders both sublime and grotesque..." -Q, star trek
@@AlfredoPuente8 "You go into a room, look around, shoot the eyeball, and move to the next room. Is that, is that even a puzzle? Is that fun for people? I get that it's all 3D now and it's new and ur not getting all the information when walking into a room, but to STOP all your forward momentum, just to do the same open sesame trick you did seven times already, sucks. [skyward sword voice] 'hey man it's not that bad u get used to it' "DON'T-- don't act like you can join this conversation skyward sword. We're like, having a moment here? You're not invited." - arin, sequelitis on OoT -- really good essay on how a lot of the clunkier mechanics in OoT were a result of the jump from 2D to 3D combat, and 3D in general
I legit explore wherever I go and when people ask I always say, "Zelda games taught me that"....and then come back from the woods with a ton of loot like feathers, bones, etc because I am good at finding things apparently lol.
@@AlfredoPuente8 Am I the only one that searches the rooms endlessly for items at the expense of play time? lol. Espeically in BOTW. Spend 4 hours collecting eggs, apples, wood, and flint before even trying the first tasks XD.
Man legit wrote the Zelda essay to end all Zelda Essays. Jokes aside, this is some of the most original commentary I've seen in quite a while. Phenomenal work.
It kind of is one of the most notable video essays on Zelda so far, my hope is that enough people watch this video that the "X Zelda is best because it's the darkest" sentiment dies away in the fandom. It's frankly quite juvenile and I think the Zelda series deserves better praise than just "ooh, dark video game". I also think this video is a great intro for video game fans to the greater world of literary children's media like "The Little Prince", "Watership Down" or "The Hobbit"; or for people who read literature to see this and realize that video games like Zelda are a lot richer thematically than they initially would have thought, and is thus changed on their opinion on video games as art. The more people that give Zelda a chance, the happier I am.
Sometimes I wonder if the entire machinery of evolution, of human development and society, all of this history and wars fought and battles won and lost, was for the purpose of producing essays about Zelda on TH-cam, preferably with the mid-20's/30's white dude, usually but not always Canadian, sitting in a pastoral landscape, reading it out to a camera
@@grey_f98 I 100% agree that dark Zelda =/= good Zelda. My favourite Zelda game is Breath of the Wild. Not because it's dark or anything, but because the gameplay is fun. I had more fun playing it than with any other Zelda game, so it's my favourite.
@@Nate_tmcrthe phrase “grimdark” originates from Warhammer 40k, which has been rife with political themes about the horrors of fascism for decades. The setting baths in its edginess more nowadays, but let’s not pretend that grimdark has no value
@@scepta101totally! like regardless of how differently it's defined these days, the original concept of grimdark was super fascinating and definitely rooted in some important social commentary and discourse
This is exactly why Twilight Princess is my favourite entry in the series. Not because of its edge lord tone and twisted elements, but - like you said - because those things are used to highlight kindness, friendship, community, warmth... It's absolutely beautiful.
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
You just turned a bunch of games that I've never played into a metaphor that makes me proud to live the life I've been given and take pride in opening doors for strangers and comforting my toddler when she cries. You are a bard of the modern age. I anticipate the back catalog I have yet to listen to and anticipate everything that is to come. Thank you.
That’s the one thing I make sure to tell people when they’re talking about kids, you once shit your pants to don’t get so mad, you or many people you know snuck out, you lied, you stole from, you didn’t understand the world and having to work to pay bills at one point. It’d be nice to explain these things to kids but let them be kids, absolutely make sure they know right from wrong but let them be kids and experience things for themselves or at least enjoy the little bits.
"Being messed up is not a theme. Darkness is not a narrative." Great point along with what you were saying about how we think adult readings are more interesting than happier ones. It reminds me a lot of my favourite passage from Ursula K Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting." Excellent video. Thank you.
Yeah but then you learn that the Omelas thing was about how the scifi community at the time at least around Berkley knew two of its big founders and "Networking" people (Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband) were massive child rapists and nobody had the balls to turn them in...
Yes, we sometimes hear a whole generation talking about how we are all broken. But being broken is boring…they are obsessing with their weaknesses. This is a sad acknowledgment of a terrible lack of education on history. People have written about the human condition and young people acknowledging it in such a trivial way lacks insight.
You hit the nail on the head with this one. What makes Zelda games so good it's not that they are "secretly" dark, edgy, and adult. They never try to hide it. What makes them amazing pieces of art, it's that *despite* all of that, they show you the beauty of all the small things the world has to offer. In Majora's Mask, the world will end in 3 days, and yet, most people still try to live their lives, find beauty and love each other, which is powerful
Its kind of amazing how I want to be able to live in the various versions of Hyrule, just sit and chill and watch the clouds float by, even while there's a constant sense of impending doom because the world is about to end or someone you love is suffering Just let me fish without guilt, Nintendo
Too true. The Zelda series has never been about shoving 'gritty' in your face. The dark parts are purposely overshadowed by a light hero story, but those that can comprehend the implications of its lore see a very dark undertone, that can't be ignored when considering the motives of the characters. This is kinda like what makes Zelda lore so awesome: that the games don't regularly emphasize every crucial aspect of the lore, and instead you have to piece it together like a 'meta-puzzle', or whatever. The darkness is just one aspect.
@@jimmybean420 I think there might be a word or two missing. From context, it seems like it's meant to be "What makes these games amazing pieces of art". Of course amazing art can look many different ways, but this is specifically about Zelda.
the conclusion to this video almost put me to tears. the real world is such a horrid place to be, but it's filled with so much beauty too. It's worth fighting for.
@@Dontworryaboutit961 i know your comment is purposefully antagonizing but to take it seriously for a moment, i think the mundanity of daily life is also in itself a form of fighting for the world; you spend your days making choices when pure inaction is always presenting itself as an option, to choose existence over nonexistence is a fight to me, and what are you if not a piece of the world
30:53 made me remember this quote from C.S. Lewis: "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up".
I remember a piece of this quote or one like it, being misused by Bill Maher in one of his increasingly right wing New Rules segments about Stan Lee and comics.
Told my nephew one to never be intimidated by someone who yells, "I'm a grown-ass man!" At you. He isn't hollering at you; he's trying to reassure himself.
I believe he was referring to 1 Corinthians 13:11 of the KJV of the Bible, where Paul writes “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Matthew also writes a quote from Jesus in response to the question “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” and Jesus replies(Matthew 18: 1-5): “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Viewed in and out of the religious context, all these writers support the idea that a real adult is humble enough to know that they are not above “childish things”: their knowledge and comprehension are limited. In doing so they are more readily able to learn and to grow from just about anything, just as young children are trying their best to make sense of the world they are put in.
So I just watched this for the second time. Can I just say how impressive this is? This man wrote seven or eight different essays about how the darkness in different Zelda games serves primarily to show how bright their light shines, and then spliced them all together to make a super-essay discussing the usage of darkness not only in the Zelda series, but more generally in narrative and our examination of that narrative. Like, holy shit.
Jacob Geller is trully a KINO video-essay youtuber. right up there with SuperEyepatchWolf & Joseph Anderson. (atleast, according to me) (idk if any of these guys i referenced have / had / will have any bad blood with the greater internet, im just some guy commenting on a Zelda video) (so give me some slack if anything bad happens / has happened)
I'm pretty sure its about exploration.. considering the series is based on the creator exploring the wooded mountainside as a child. But the hope thing is cool too.. there is a real feeling of childlike wonder in exploring these games, that inspires a hopeful feeling, and creates a beautiful juxtaposition with the dark themes.
The last 5 minutes of this essay HITS. Thank you for putting this together, this whole concept is hard to explain to people. This is why I love Zelda - they're all dark, but they're all stories of hope and perseverance
When you talked about children's books with deep themes only appreciated when read later in life, Michael Ende's books immediately came to mind. My father read momo and the neverending story to me several times when I was younger (as my grandfather did for him), and every time I reread them I discover new meanings and themes I didn't pick up on before. If I ever have children, I'll definitely continue the tradition.
@@VsevolodKhusid Probably because many native English speakers don't care about stuff produced in other languages, besides some exceptions. At least I heard they often don't watch non-English movies because they care so much about the lipsync.
@@omeragam8628 Maybe I should start reading his books. I watched a lot of adaptations, especially when I was younger (they play stuff like that in theaters (not cinemas) in Germany, where I live and where the author is from, and I've been there with school or family). I didn't expect anyone from outside of Germany would know him.
Actually the true darkest Zelda game is Phantom Hourglass due to the unending torment and anguish I experienced at having to complete the Temple of the Ocean King 5+ times.
I loved the phantom hourglass as a kid. Finding all the ways to speedrun the temple of the ocean king, the new paths that opened with every new item, it tickled a certain part of my brain. Some people also find that torturous. I have in a game played a level that is shorter than 10 seconds for probably close to 200 hours. Its for me, but not for everyone.
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." -Ursula K. Le Guin
Less than ten seconds in and I’ve already been mentally cheese-necked by the phrase “also I’m gonna spoil Animorphs” I cannot WAIT to see how existentially raw I’m gonna be after this one
As a massive life-long Animorphs I had to rewind about 3 times to make sure that was actually what he said. I’m so used to it being the hyperniche thing that I care about and no one else does and hearing someone I know and respect casually namedrop it was utterly wild
@@Gortanckla Given that it is paired with the phrase "existentially raw", I think it was meant to evoke the feeling of taking a chess grater to your neck.
I think this is also why Link always has the Triforce of Courage. It's not because he's brave enough to defeat ganon, but because he's brave enough to continue after his victory, to leave the comfort of what he knows to pursue better things after the smoke clears
Except he doesn’t always have the triforce of courage. He doesn’t have it in Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures, Phantom hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Link’s Awakening or the original Zelda game. And presumably not in BOTW either.
@@TheEndKing In Skyward sword, all triforce pieces are hidden in a temple, and then Link finds them and put them together on the goddess statue. From there on, it’s in the temple of time until Ganondorf splits it in Ocarina of Time, meaning Minish Cap and Four Swords Link never touches it (makes sense, those games never reference the triforce at all). Link having the triforce of courage in OoT is actually treated as a new and extraordinary thing in the story of that game. In the Downfall timeline, Ganon takes all triforce pieces, and keeps them until he is defeated in Link to the Past, in which the whole triforce is owned by the royal family until Zelda 2’s manual backstory (Which takes place between Triforce Heroes and Zelda 1). Then, the triforce of courage is hidden, and is hidden until Link manually collects it in Zelda 2. In the Adult timeline. The triforce of courage is hidden in fragments under the sea, and Wind Waker Link needs to manually collect them. At the end of that game, all 3 triforce pieces are united, and then the triforce is buried under the sea forever. No one has any triforce pieces in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. In the Child timeline, the triforce of courage is presumably inherited by the Hero of Time’s descendents, like Twilight Princess Link. However, Four Swords Adventures Link is not (confirmed to be) in their familial lineage, and the triforce is never mentioned in that game, so we can assume he doesn’t have it.
@@TheEndKing Yep, Link has an extraordinary amount of courage, which is why the triforce piece often finds its way into him. But he often doesn’t have the physical triangle.
“Light and Darkness. One can’t exist without the other.” Zelda is one of the few franchises that understands that to be factual. For every goofy forest creature, there’s a gruesome war that happened ages ago, for every tragedy, there’s a quiet little village, full of welcoming people and things to do. That is what Zelda is. Light in darkness.
I've been weirdly saving this video in my watchlist for a "right occasion" for months now and I'm glad I did. I recently finished totk and this was the perfect moment for me to see this wonderfully put together essay on something that means the world to me. In the best way possible, I am crying in the middle of the night and feeling all the emotions these games have awoken in me so long ago and I'm grateful for that. Thank you for making this.
Windwaker Ganon will always be my favorite Villain in the franchise. This iteration of Ganondorf is the most human, the most relatable. He isn't on a pursuit of power fuelled by ambition or greed. He just wants his world back, the Hyrule that he genuinely loved. The flood separated the races of hyrule, forced to live in small, secluded islands with little contact between them. The ocean, so vast it can't possibly be swam across, doesn't even yield edible fish to catch. In every sense of the word, the gods doomed the people of this land. Ganondorf challenges the very gods that flooded the world to seal him and demands they give him his world back. Even in his dying breath his only thoughts are of the winds of Hyrule Field he so coveted. And this is why Ganon, is the hottest zelda character
It remminds me of a comment/mini essay (i think it was in TvTropes) that discuses the diference between WW Ganondorf and TP Ganondor,. In WW, after the goddesses flooded Hyrule, Ganondorf ended up alone and with the knowledge themselves opposed him, and thus he turned inward, contemplating and reflecting on his life, and the world that he used to inhabit, thus when we met him we see a lot calmer than he was on OoT. Meanwhile in TP, he was arrested before he could enact his plan, so for him it was just his political rivals obstructing his plans, them when he was about to be executed, the triforce of power woke within him, as is to signal the goddesses themselves supported him, and finally when he was sealed in the twilight realm he found the twli who were exiled from the light realm, and more importantly Zant, who just like him was resentful of the current leader, wiahed for more power and was willing to treat Ganondorf as a god, all of that just fed his ego, thus when we finally comfront him in TP, he still is in essence a fearsome warlord, in a mission for conquest and a desire for revenge against hyrule aand the princess' chosen, one forced him to reflect ,the other made him double down in his thirst tor conquest
There is, actually, an Aonuma interview where he explains why majora's mask came ou the way it did: 1 - being pressured to rush the game leading to stress and anxiety, with these feelings spilling into the game. 2 - short time to develop and test everything, so if something was implemented and it worked, it was staying in, no second thought.
Yeah. I had never felt as much satisfaction when doing side quests as much as I did in this game. The bombers Notebook was short, but incredibly worth the time.
@@vcdgamerIt was one of my favorite aspects of the game, because it made me realize for the first time that this world is inhabited by people. By then I rarely formed attachment to NPC's, they were mostly static, giving one or two dialogues and that was it, but Majora's Mask made me care for these people.
I think majoras mask is about trauma even the game acknowledges it when the giants forgive skull kid and he forgives them for abandoning him, their childhood friend. And then the giants tell link to forgive his friend… who I think is meant to be Navi, for abandoning him. That and how the theme of a never ending cycle of impending doom happening all over again while you can’t do anything to stop it is literally the definition of ptsd
I just love the way you can string together a whole web of interconnected ideas seamlessly. It’s basically how the human mind operates bouncing from one thought to the next but to be able to concisely articulate that is something else.
one of my absolute favorite part of this guys essays is his talent in doing that - maybe its just pleasing my pattern seeking brain but it really helps get his ideas across to me
I remember playing spirit track when i was little and loving it, no idea if it was because of the inherent darkness and the contrast it builds with the hopeful story or if it was because I'm autistic and really liked driving the train.
"One war immediately segues into another" is also a theme for Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. Like slew Gannon and rescued Zelda, but Gannon's minions survive and remain loyal to him, seeking out Link's blood to sprinkle over Gannon's ashes to revive him. These references to blood and human sacrifice remained intact even in 1980s Nintendo's localization censorship.
The Game Over screen of Zelda 2 used to scare me as a kid because it literally implies that your death caused Ganon to return. Every time you die and ‘Game Over’, it means that evil has prevailed. The looming picture of Ganon and his laugh were a pretty good way to convey that with the limited capacity the NES had.
Actually, Ganon was utterly, and completely gone. Nothing existed of him: His soul and all. In fact, Link also destroyed the Curse that kept him reviving. So, his followers needed the blood of the person who killed him to revive him. Pretty dark theme.
@@HylianKirbo If Gannon's soul was utterly and completely gone, then no magic would bring him back because there'd be no soul to inhabit the resurrected body. Link _did_ , however, have the Triforce of Power after winning that fight in the first game and presumably kept it in Zelda 2. Your reading might be a little more hardcore but A) that's not what's actually in the text of the game itself or its manual and B) it's kinda nonsense. The only version of Ganon utterly destroyed and _permanently_ prevented from reviving was Wind Waker, and not because of Link stabbing his brains out, but because of the King using the Triforce wish to wish Ganon would be unable to keep coming back - and since Hyrule existing means Ganon can in fact eventually come back, it granted this by letting the last remnant of Hyrule be destroyed in the flood waters.
@@RoninCatholic ? Nah, there is a type of *regen* that Fiction has. In fact, it's called Mid Godly Regen. Demise went through the same thing: His soul was eradicated across time and whatnot. However, Girahim needed Hylia's Divine Essence to make a ritual to revive him. You can contruct a soul again, after destruction through means. Link didn't have the triforce of power in that fight: He used the triforce of wisdom to totally annihilate Ganon. It's not nonsense, it's quite literally the plot, and end of the Timeline. There is no curse for Ganon to revive with, so his followers need the blood of link to do as such. As for Wind Waker. That's also false. Ganon's curse is a reliant immortality- it will exist as long as set concepts exist. For instance, it's reliant upon the concept of the Reincarnation Bloodline. He will always spawn an incarnation of his hatred to cause chaos to Link and Zelda's Bloodline. The King ultimately wished for the History of Hyrule to be erased: essentially, a new world. Demise's Curse is still present, and he just comes back in differing forms.
@@HylianKirbo I didn't say Link had the Triforce of Power to defeat Gannon, I said he collected the Triforce of Power _after_ defeating him at the end of the first game. And no, it's just complete utter conceptual nonsense for the soul to be destroyed and have _the same individual_ in any way revived afterward. And further, what can you cite to back up _your_ claims that Gannon was so thoroughly destroyed at the end of the first game? It's pretty clear in context that Gannon's ashes are still there, and presumably also his soul. And that "formal" name for this "type" of resurrection being "Mid Godly Regen"? This some formal power scaling terminology? Because it's a dumb term and doesn't even describe then power.
The Legend of Zelda is a great example of the stark difference between "grimdark" storytelling and "mature" storytelling. The games have many dark elements that, when taken out of context, can be used as an "OMG look how DARK this game is" as you pointed out in your video. But Zelda games always manage to pull you back into the light because every game is about people staying hopeful in a dark world that wants them dead. The endings of Zelda games also stick out like a sore thumb compared to Nintendo's other flagships. Rarely does Zelda games end with a no-strings-attached happy ending and usually ends with Link left to pick up the pieces after he "wins". It forces you to think about what would happen next and it's main reason why this franchise is my favorite to this day. Also Ganondorf's "Your gods destroyed you!" line from Wind Waker still gives me absolute shivers today
Honestly, I feel like this complaint can b easily lodged against the Sonic games, especially the more serious ones; even though I think only a couple like Shadow The Hedgehog who's maturity is so thin and fake that I don't believe it tricked anyone over 12. But I believe that at least the games from 1998-2009 were the mature Sonic games; in Sonic Adventure 1, taken over by a lust for power, the leader of the Knuckles clan sends his men to charge after her own daughter and innocent chao, an action that would lead to Chaos awakening and sending the Echidna's to near extinction. In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow can be a metaphor for how revenge plagues our minds after a tragedy; as his memories have been specifically altered by his creator Gerald to believe that Shadow's best friend Maria's dying wish was for Shadow to take revenge on humanity. In the end Shadow realises Maria's true wish to save humanity after his mind is cleared and he (at that time) sacrifices his life to save the Earth. During the ending cutscene, Rouge asks Sonic if Shadow was really created to exact revenge on humanity to which Sonic shrugs it off and says "He was what he was, a heroic hedgehog, who gave his life to save the Earth" In Sonic and The Black Knight, the main conflict towards the end of the story is when the twist villain Merlina takes the powers of the main villain and starts corrupting the world in a way so it will never end; having seen the tragedy that will come later in life, she's scared of seeing her world end so she does everything in her power to stop it until she's defeated by Sonic who in the end simply says "Merlina... Every world has its end. I know that's kinda sad, but... That's why we gotta live life to the fullest in the time we have. At least, that's what I figure."
I don't understand the appeal of grimdark. "Everything sucks, everything has sucked, everything will continue to suck". Where's the enjoyment in that? Thanks, I'm depressed now I guess
It's funny, because now I catch myself crying at the end of The Minish Cap. Like this is the most bright Zelda game, the most fairy tale Zelda game. Yet it introduced something that I never understood as a kid: letting go when the time is over. During that game, you meet with Minish creatures (or Picori, in English, I think). They are only seen by children. You evolve from a child to someone walking on clouds to save your best friend. At the end, the door between the Minish and the Human worlds close. You say goodbye to your mentor. Silence. Staff roll. That was an adventure. Your very own first adventure (it was the first Zelda game I was able to finish). And when the time comes, you have to move on. After finishing that game, as a kid, I did my first accomplishment of finishing a Zelda game. After finishing that game, as an adult, I understood how childhood must be protected.
I really appreciate how well you summed up that childhood need to experience dark media. I feel like so often adults think they need to scrub children's media of anything scary or violent in some bid to protect a kid's innocence. But goodness knows I read so many dark books as a kid, and I couldn't really articulate why I loved them so much until you put it into words. It was a search for experiences I hadn't had yet and for emotions I couldn't yet unravel. So thanks!
i was thinking the exact same thing when he used the "trial run" idea! i think it's important for kids to be exposed to somewhat dark/scary things in a safe and controlled environment like fiction so that those things don't completely blindside them in real life. i'm not saying to show kids media that will like, utterly horrify them or whatever, but a little dark stuff is good imo!
It also works the other way around considering how many times I've seen adults basically throw tantrums when children's media have the audacity to not include them. Feel like every cartoon has the need to shoehorn in an unnecessary, "mature" (for them) over arching story
Childhood afterall is meant to be an evolution into adulthood. Not that they be a child forever...I think too many societies have this weird obsession with maintaining youth and purity and...they're inherently delusional over how nature and time is an eventuality. Doing that gives you a sheltered adult with no real-world skills or coping mechanisms to handle life. Hell I still remember the absolute neutering 80's and 90's cartoons got.
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." -J.R.R. Tolkien
This really is a good tone, im so tired of people acting like darkness and violence are inherently mature and surperior to happy endings. It never felt fulfilling, its like being told that eating flavorless spicy peppers is better than cake.
That’s the problem with most “bad ending” games. The endings are flavorless. If you manage to pull off a bad ending that’s nit so much as bad as it is “it’s not the best, but we’re doing better/fixing it,” then it’s alright. If you manage to make a good bad ending that isn’t ahhh nooo we all r dying aghgahyguj then it’s just flavorless. But if you manage to give it a bit of flavor beyond that, then it’s great. And hey, some spicy peppers, when they taste pretty good, are sometimes better then just straight cakes, right?
@@3a.m.284 I may be wrong, but I believe what L0velessL0ver tried to say is you'd only be receiving the sensation of pain from flavorless ones by choosing/preferring them over cake which represents the presence of flavor.
What's most striking to me about a lot of "actually fucked up" readings is how much it's clear that they don't believe what they're saying either. And I think it speaks to a larger culture of viewing media analysis as a competitive sport. It's not an exploration on themes and intended messages vs. interpreted ones. Instead, media analysis is when you can get people to say, "wow, I can't believe it's actually fucked up" and the more people say it, the better you are.
@@drake1360 It reminds me of a person who made a RWBY meme of how his world is much better than the original. Then you realize he actually never did anything and more fanfiction is actually written than his concept that never made past the first sentence. In the end, he used a meme to rally everyone into thinking his daydreams is as thought out than fanfictions that are actually written and have plot, characterisation, and story. I offer that meme to actual writers and not the meme creator who never wrote anything.
I hate it when people do this stuff. a good one is shiver star from kirby 64 actually being post-apocalyptic earth, because kirby is pretty dark so that's a thing they would do, and it doesn't make the whole story of 64 "eff'd up" (more than it actually is, of course). a bad one is kirby being evil. he's not evil. shut up matpat.
I love realistic optimism. Truly what is to be done with a miserable world but to take it in your stride, and to see the beauty that hides behind that ominous, threatening mask that life wears to scare you away. Anyone that can be kind or see true value of simple joy in the face of anything has my respect.
"We are left with darkness, yes, a threat that never quite dissapears... But we're left with hope, too" The Legend of Zelda can touch a lot of dark themes throughout the games, but one theme prevails: Hope (Amazing video, truly amazing)
That's the theming I've always loved about the series. Sometimes it genuinely gets to feelings of oppressive darkness, but it's always ended on a note of "but it's okay", and I adore that. The acceptance of the darker parts of these fictional worlds written into the fiction itself is so well done, it's not mindless like a "and the day is saved and everything was good from then onward!" No, it's triumph over darkness that leaves for a time, but returns eventually, so that another may triumph over it once more. And it's in these triumphs that it is shown why the seemingly eternal struggle between the two opposed forces is seen as worth it, because the thing that's being fought for is the triumphant, happy, upbeat, joyful, sometimes humorous moments, not the perpetuating of more darkness.
One thing that usually helps me get people interested in The Legend of Zelda series is telling them that Ganon is a just as important part of the triforce as Link or Zelda, that the entire lore's balance basically relies on the fact that these three always exist together.
Jacob, you’ve hit a theme in my life that’s been coming up a lot lately: “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and Porter Robinson’s “Nurture” both have this theme of compassion and kindness in the midst of hardship… it’s a message that I need, one I think we all need right now. The world is a scary place. Life is hard. Maybe nothing matters. But none of these things mean that there isn’t hope, or joy, or comfort… none of them mean that we shouldn’t be kind and love each other. Thank you for making this. I’m so happy to be growing older with you and experiencing these things in life with someone like you to help make sense of it all.
I so appreciate storytellers articulating this perspective, it’s something I always had trouble verbalizing. So many black-pilled people out there think that optimists are ignorant of the darkness in the world, too stupid to realize how bad things are. But what if we’re aware of all that, accept it, and choose to enjoy life anyway and try to improve it in any little way we can, even if it’s a drop in the bucket? Sure, nothing matters and we’re probably all fucked. So what? I can still make art and love people and enjoy nature. Wallowing in despair isn’t enlightened, it’s lazy.
Honestly, what I’ve always like about the Zelda games is the simple fact that, despite how grim or dark everything gets, how hopeless things seem to be, you always prevail in stopping darkness from overtaking everything completely, that light wins out in the end. And even during the times when there is so much darkness, that faint glimmer is enough to make you push back against it all. I also like how Link always is portrayed as the quite hero who silently shoulders the burden of such, sometimes being reluctant, but always forging ahead despite his fears. Courage is the light that keeps us going amidst the dark, the thing that makes us step forward when all others flee, and the Zelda series does an awesome job of proving that fact. So yeah, will always be a Zelda fan no matter how old I get.
i literally just wrote a comment on something bout this being the driving force for an idea i had for Link giving up and how Zelda convinces him why they keep fighting anyway. i'll just copy n paste it. but yeah your right. ''watching this makes you realise how much poor Link has been through, rescuing Zelda and Hyrule over and over, as if he's in a perpetual nightmare. Forever bound to relive and replay saving everyone only to inevitably have to do it all over again because we can't let him rest because we need a Zelda game. I think it's time Link took a game off. Maybe he gives up. after so many tries and eventual failures, because if you think about it none of his victories at the end of each game are permanent, so they are just that, failures. So he quits. Leaves for a far off place to wallow in his sorrow. His depression and melancholy manifest physically somehow and start to transform the world around him to the point it begins to endanger Hyrule. Only one person can bring him back from the brink and end his sorrow, and that person is Zelda. For the first time (as far as i know) you play as Zelda. As she learns to do what Link has always done, herself saving others and sometimes failing. She keeps going so as to save Link, all the while helping people only to see her efforts seem in vain when a character she save dies from something out of her control. Still she soldiers on. Meanwhile Links emotions turn darker and the land around becomes more twisted, and now so....does he. His form begins to change and transform into something dark and hulking. A form we see glimpses of but mostly he is always in shadow, silhouetted against whatever dim light there is where he now resides surrounded by a twisted world of his own making. Meanwhile Zelda fights on. Making her way through trial after trial, trials she succeeds at, only for fate to intervene and make her efforts seem pointless. She soldiers on. Until finally. She makes it to Link....but he has changed. He stands, recognition barely flickers in his memory of who she is. his shadow looms over Zelda as his eyes flash towards her, he steps into the light......no...it can't be...it's Ganondorf? ''where's Link? what have you doe with him?'' cries Zelda thinking he has somehow returned and taken Link, and the battle ensues. They fight but as they do Zelda cries for Link, screaming for his return. ''you are nothing compared to Link! nothing'' as she fights she Ganondorf through her tears, her words awaken Link from inside Ganondorf just as she is about to land the killing blow. she brings the sword down and sees....tears? in the eyes of her enemy? she stops. This isn't really Ganondorf, just Link transformed by his sadness and anger into the thing he has fought so hard to destroy only for it to come back again and again, and so he succumb and let that evil take over and consume him, become him. But slowly Ganondorf changes back to Link who is now sobbing. ''it's okay'' says Zelda ''I'm here'' She realises through her quest, that Link has been through the same quest a thousand times. saving and helping only for it all to be undone and to have to do it all over time and time again. But she tells him why she fought on, why she kept going. She kept going for him, and she kept saving and helping people even in the face of inevitable failure because to those people she saved, even if only for a minute. it meant so much to them in that brief moment of peace that all the bad couldn't compare. in a lifetime of war, even a day of peace would be worth fighting for. And that's it. Hyrule is saved, for now. And Link, whilst still sad, isn't alone. He never has been. or something even more tropey and cliched. idk, i'm not a writer, i'm just an idea's guy whatever that means. I just think it would be cool to give the little guy a break, and give the games namesake the lead for once. Not in a forced way like ''oh everyones gender swapping the roles now lets make oceans 12 or ghostbusters with girls'' But in an actual interesting way that makes sense story wise. A story about failure and about why we fight on even in the face of that failure. or something...theres people out there who could do this way better. heck, it doesnt even have to be a legit game, could be a rom hack, or even just a story. just think it would be interesting to see her perspective of going through what Link has always went through to save everyone.'' damn, i didnt realise how long that was, but again, you're right. even in the face of all that darkness they fight on regardless instead of just giving in. because to give in would be to let it win and take over....and possibly turn you into a manifestation of your greatest enemy/demon and have to be saved for once by someone else who has to remind you of why we fight on against insurmountable odds and in the face of inevitable darkness.
There was exactly one time in Zelda lore when hope completely died and we never got to see it- it was just so bad the Goddesses got off their lazy asses and flooded the place. And even that still didn't really work.
@@D0S81 There is one giant issue with this and its that, Zelda and Link are not the same people during each game. Every link and every zelda is a seperate person that each do their best to fight against evil cause its part of their very being. Link could only be sick of saving the day if he had memories of every adventure and every failure the previous heroes have done. Link is someone that could become jaded but regardless he still wants to live up to his duties, which is what breath of the wild wants to characterize his past as
This is a really good video on the frustrating edges of story discourse. I feel like sometimes people mistake "this thing exists" with analysis by itself, when its place and contextualization in the larger narrative ought to also be considered (and I feel like stopping at 'hey this is dark' can lead to 'and that's why Nemo was dead the whole time I guess' as one tries to contextualizes the tone without grounding it in the existing narrative). Also, for people interested in Wind Waker, the channel Skyehoppers recently put out a video called "The Wind Waker and the Apocalypse" that I highly recommend. It analysis the game specifically as a post-apocalyptic story and doesn't stop at 'hey this is messed up lol' but instead sees what the narrative is doing both island-to-island and on a macro level.
Ugh God bless, you're so right! Analysis shouldn't be "these are the literal recounting of events and some broad speculation" but an engaged inspection of what those events do for the story and how they interconnect to form a message, meaning, and resolution!
For me this video comes of more like “my type of analysis is the only valid analysis”. So what? is a question you can ask until the end of time and no analysis is safe from it, no matter how complex you think it is.
@@GordakiprimeWhy would you laugh? They *are* kids' games. The whole point of this video was to look at the way media aimed primarily at children (The Zelda games) can explore fairly serious topics and themes in a way that even young, inexperienced people can understand. Jacob even goes so far as to say that this obsession with revisiting media you enjoyed as a child and looking for ways to convince yourself "this was meant for adults the whole time" just to feel like you didn't "waste your time with dumb kid's stuff" is itself childish. As someone who loves the Zelda games, yes, they are definitely, unambiguously "kids games". There's no reason for you to laugh. Rewatch the video lol
this video literally changed my life, it changed my perspective on art and media and how i connect to it and what i get out of it. i would not be writing the stories i write today if not for this video. thank you , jacob geller, for being a turning point for my relationship to stories.
"Your companions are you, only marked as individuals by their favorite color. Each of them shares your memories, your goals, and your sense of companionship. But only one of you actually experienced those memories. Only one of you has a future. And just think of what it means, that there could be an army of heroes called forth whenever evil threatens... "But usually, there's just one very quiet child, in over his head."
@@murasakitenin this horrific timeline, bombs can be sold to children if they have the rupees. Despite our main character being a representative of the government itself, this right-libertarian ideology has become so normative that salesmen feel comfortable shaking down children for money to purchase deadly explosives
I hate to be a buzzkill, but Susan W. confirmed on Twitter that this Jacob Gellar is actually the great grandfather of the "Cave Video" timeline Jacob Gellar's neighbor. So technically he hasn't made any "other videos" yet.
There is so much about this video that struck multiple chords, but the way you connected the themes and stories of multiple games together so seamlessly was honestly one of the most incredible narratives I've ever heard, not to even mention the actual insightful and meaningful points made. Amazing work, thank you for sharing this.
Not nowadays, nowadays the current lore is Link is a disembodied spirit who possesses random children to go on to be the next Link. Hope you didn't like any nuance in WW! It's gone now! Bravo Aonuma!
Not many heroes in Zelda's history are chosen by the triforce, every hero bar TP is not chosen, or chosen very late. My favorite being the Hero of Time, the underdog with 0 family and very few friends because of being a hylian or AKA, the boy without a fairy. First off he wasn't immediately chosen by the master sword so the master sword imprisoned him for 7 years. Robbed of a childhood, he is sent back through time before any evil events occur and notifies Zelda of ganon's plot, which brings me to say that the most interesting concept of the Hero of Time is that he leaves little trace of himself behind after saving the world. No medal of honor or anything. Just some men in black type shit and the time travel is the neuralizer.
I just want to say thank you for adding captions to this video. I can't hear without captions very well, and it limits the number of videos I can watch. This video intrigued me and I probably would have clicked off immediately if there weren't any captions, so I just wanna make sure that the effort doesn't go unnoticed. It really makes all the difference.
27:40 As a kid I was terrified by the sudden horror sweep through Hyrule and didn't touch the game for 3 days. Those zombies and their choking hold man. :D It's also partially what makes Zelda so interesting. Having been around an alcoholic dad, fighting parents, experiencing bullying at school and playing alone, I think I subconsciously took comfort out of the darker themes and kept coming back for more Zelda games. It was to escape to a world that I took both comfort in and could relate to. The worlds have their darker sides, but the worlds also had their bright sides with charming characters and interesting villages while you are all free to explore around.
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
I think I really needed this. With the way the world is and the seeming doom and gloom that we've all been living with in so long... I needed a reminder that even Link, my childhood hero, faced overwhelming darkness and still managed to find good in the world, in people, and himself. It can be so hard to remember sometimes.
Something you articulate so well in this video is that conspiracy-theory style "takes" on a story/game's dark, "hidden" meaning can obfuscate what the story actually does in the first place. They trade intentional storytelling decisions and interesting narrative choices for borderline random fan fiction rewrites that ignore everything the story did that was interesting. It's areas like this that I find relevant to distinguish between theories like "Majora's Mask is about the stages of grief" vs. "Majora's Mask is the final moments of Link's dying consciousness." The former may not be the author's intent, but it Dovetails with the themes of the game and what the game is ABOUT. It's an interesting interpretation of a meaningful story that gives back to what it is analyzing. The latter is lazy. It adds nothing of note and actively works AGAINST what the story is doing. Link being "dead" the whole time doesn't make the story any more interesting or valuable and it doesn't mesh with the story's themes.
This reminds me of something Ursula Le Guin wrote about people looking to extract a singular message from her books. Especially in her books aimed at a younger audience, she experienced adults trying to reduce them to a lesson to be learned, a moral to be recited. And her response, which seems equally apt for this conspiratorial reading of art, was that any art worth its salt resists and is ill served by such shallow interpretation. Of course there's nothing wrong with trying to articulate a particular reading of a work, or talking about its themes, even and especially if the author never intended for you to derive that meaning from it. But if you approach a story with some depth and all you come away with is a single sentence platitude or a contrarian theory which has no meaning but being unexpected, then you're probably missing out on a lot.
@Alatar the Blue A theory is "lazy" because you completely ignore what the story actually says in service of what you want it to be. All theories "can be true", all of them are possible, but are you theorizing to better understand the story and how it affects you, or are you simply trying to massage your ego by coming up with a more edgy reading than that of other people?
@Alatar the Blue Way to miss the point of both my reply and the video itself. By your logic, all the pretentious edgy theories that annoy people are "valid" because they might have worked hard on them. Clearly you have a fragile ego, but no one is obligated to respect what you say or what you believe. Just because you sound smart doesn't mean you are smart. And to think that you've gathered some hidden "meaning" to something that they authors never intended is arrogance, plain and simple. You are entitled to your beliefs, but you are not entitled to approval or respect.
Several comments leave CS Lewis quotes, so I want to hit you with one of my favorite LeGuin quotes: "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." Great video! Slowly working my way through your back catalogue and enjoying every bit of it.
The most interesting stories are told when light and dark interact, intersect, intermingle. Pure darkness blinds you just as much as pure light: Either way, you can't read the words on a book if you can't see.
This video has me crying. Not only because of the inherently “dark themes”, but because it took me almost 18 years to realize that these games have such deep meaning. I’ve loved them since I got my grubby little hands on ocarina of time for the N64 at age 6. And yet it has taken me how many years to understand why I loved that game so much. I realize now that the reason I love this series is not just because the games are generally fun to play, but the fact that link has gone through so much, and keeps going. He is still alive. He didn’t give up.
@@st.dennie1149 arts meaning is subjective it means whatever you want it to mean as you shape your own reality. That’s what makes it good and what everything is about
I always get happy when i hear about Animorphs. It was one of the first books that made me cry. When Tobias got stuck, the way it was written, it hit me hard. Such good books.
Man, what raw appreciation, crystalline criticism, and depths of empathy were poured into this; it’s astounding. What a way to properly give back to these eternally meaningful memories we took by humbling yourself, and (re)presenting them with composed yet profound passion. There is really so much respect toward these games, and a whole community who needs people to honour them eloquently. As an adult, I’ve never truly understood how to treasure and learn from these experiences, so I began to feel that maybe they were better off forgotte and started slumping into a prognosis not unlike that of Skullkid or Grog. But watching this, I felt my heart wrenched out from under my childhood, and lapsed into a fit of anamnesis. Thank you, I needed that cry.
"It's a game where those darker aspects framing the world make each act of kindness stand out more. Zelda's generosity, Link's inspiring bravery, every random townsperson's will to survive." You pretty much hit on head why I love and hate so much grim-dark fantasy. I fell in love with the genre when I first read Witcher books as teenager. They showed how bad humans could be, but they also showed how each individual could chip away at that darkness. It's something that a LOT of grim-dark fantasy writers don't understand. You don't show violence for violence sake. You don't write rape scenes because you write grim-dark fantasy. No. The best way to showcase how your world is dark and how it changes is by contrasting those seemingly small acts of kindness. It's discovering light that was hidden all along that inspires people 😊
You'd like Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. A seriously dark medieval fantasy horror novel that ends so beautifully it is the only novel that has ever made me cry
Berserk is still my absolute favorite example of that. Spoilers if you haven't read Guts finding so much to live for in the people he surrounds himself with to go so far as to give up on the revenge he had been living for all this time is incredible. Such a personal story with a beautiful message that unfortunately gets talked about way less than the fact a girl almost gets raped by a horse demon
One of my favorite videos of the year altogether. Tackling the importance of thematic maturity in media for kids was really inspiring, and the accompanying examples with the Zelda series really drives it home for me. I'm like you, as a kid, I didn't think much about any of that. I had a fun adventure and saved the day yippee! But it's one of those things where, in retrospect, these stories taught me about the beauty of the world as it is around me. Absolutely phenomenal
“Walking backwards into culture” is such a perfect phrase to describe retroactively understanding references in pop-culture. I relate to that feeling so hard! Great video, I love your work! It’s always so thoughtful and interesting. Thanks for adding awesomeness to the world!
Samwise Gamgee had the right of it all along. It's not the darkness that makes a story matter, but how that darkness is juxtaposed with hope and the reasons the heroes gather for fighting on. The darkness is there to highlight the good left in the world. And that's always worth fighting for
While I've had this video on my radar for quite some time, I only recently decided to watch it. All I can say is that my uncle passed recently and this video did an extremely good job at helping me through his celebration of life in so many ways that I would need to write an entire essay in order to articulate how. While I do not know what drove you to write such a beautiful video essay, it was one that was able to help me mourn and grieve and make coping with his passing just a little bit easier and I simply cannot thank you enough for that. I can only hope that this video can find other people - the right people - at just the right moment and I hope that if you're ever in a time of need that you can find something that helps comfort you the way that this did to me. Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Can't believe you almost made me cry at work with this one. Zelda games have always held a special place in my heart, Skyward Sword was the first real game I was exposed to growing up. The theme which you explain so well of always striving for the light no matter how dark it gets has been deeply meaningful to me.
Same boat as you! The place this series holds... Treasured beyond belief. Seeing Jacob weave it all together, put these feelings into words that resonate so deep, it's been a real treat. And so is sharing this, with all of you.
It's funny how every Zelda is considered the worst one at first, then gets reclaimed. Twilight Princess isn't my favorite, parts of it are very basic, but the melancholy and unsettling atmosphere is awesome.
“And often just a representation of how deeply a fan community has spiraled in on itself” - Jacob Geller (As he condensed the absolute mammoth of background info that is **the iceberg**, into the most precise, concise statement humanly possible, like a god damn word ninja)
This video hasn't just made me weep, it's made me ugly cry. As a person who suffered most of their life, Zelda games were never just a game to escape into, they were a story to relate to. Majora's Mask most of all. I always felt like I've met with a terrible fate. Poor Young Link having to bear so much sadness and terror in his little life, yet being so brave to face the big evil and the end of times. The flow of time is always cruel. Please be strong.
These games were so special growing up. Jacob playing the Forest Temple theme was meaningful. I spent a lot of time in that temple. Kind of got lost in it as a kid. So that theme was heard alot. My younger self knew there was deeper meaning to these stories. And my older self 20 years later still ponders them.
I think the reason the ending was so impactful for me is because I often wonder about why I keep trying. When everything around you is full of darkness and despair it is so hard to see the point. The way you structured the video, talking about the darkest aspects in each game and ending with what the takeaway should be for each individual game was just wonderful. I don't think I've cried watching a video essay before
I like this. both for how it tackles the "darkest zelda" title that gets thrown around a lot, but how it acknowledges the darkness present in each game. good video (missed opportunity to make a link joke during the sponsorship tho)
I feel a good parallel here is Lord of the Rings. I'm gonna echo Sam's speech in Two Towers: "It's like in the great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were... Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't... They were holding on to something... That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."
Weirdly enough as I transitioned from a child to a young adult, my mom got less and less okay with me playing dark games. I went from playing soul reaver as an 8 year old to having to beg my mom to let me play team fortress 2 in high school and getting a flat out no because it was rated M
The biggest takeaway i got from this video was the fact that animorphs is severly darker than I thought, as a kid I always saw it as a silly book of people becoming animals so i never read it
To ask me questions about Zelda, hear stories about filming at sunrise, and help me keep making videos like this, consider joining my Patreon: www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
Out of the literal months I've spent watching youtube videos, a person who generally reads and enjoys video games.... this is one of the most sincere and thoughtful presentations I've experienced. Thank you for this.
why does zelda wear a funny green hat he's such a silly little guy
Bro, no photosensitive epilepsy warning at 15:48? "Gee whiz I'm Jacob Geller and I'll warn you about spoilers but not imagery that causes dangerous epileptic seizures DA-DOYYY." BRUH. Like, Edit this pinned comment man or put it in the description or something! point that shit out, you don't know what sort of conditions your audience has that just want to listen to you talk about zelda and suddenly get brainzapped because of you?
Who's that running in the background at 25:13?
@@Blitzkrieg1605 The Running Man from Hyrule Field obviously
And that’s why Link’s Crossbow Training is the darkest Zelda game
Because even when the man should have found his peace he still seeks war because war is always on approach, peace never lasts and he has bound himself to it.
@@MagicalMaster genius response
@@MagicalMaster War. War never changes...
Link's Crossbow Training is the story of the hero of twilight falling into a deep sense of emptiness due to the lack of fighting after defeating Ganon, so he sets up a huge shooting gallery the size of Hyrule to fulfill the hole that has been created on his heart, but in the end, he will never achieve this, because it was just a Crossbow Training...
Edit: why tf is that the only game where Link has a crossbow? Linkle doesn't count
@@crystalalumina There we go, couple more like that and we can actually convince someone.
Another reading of Majora's Mask is that death doesn't really separate us from the dead. We carry them with us, literally in the case of the game. There's a lot of hope in that thought
Man majoras mask is so full of hope it's honestly really sad to see so many people miss that
@@king_of_scotland not only that but a journey of self actualization and that shows that even people in his situation who have lost everything and we're always destined to, despite of that he persevered and ended up coming out of it better than ever having cope with the lost things of the past
@@king_of_scotland It is the pandora's box of Zelda. It is filled with darkness and despair, but is actually a symbol of hope.
@@king_of_scotland The ancient Norse believed everyone died twice, once when your heart and body stop, and again when your name is said for the last time. I've always found comfort in that thought.
I was a honestly incredibly baffled at the take this was a Link running away from his great expectations I was wondering if we even played the same game, but I need to step back and remind myself that the thing about writing is that they don't need to match your own expectations. Everyone can and will call their own interpretations and weave whatever calls out most to them.
What you pull out tells more about you than what the story does itself and I think that's amazing
I saw someone mentioning this on some comments, the twilight hero by design is considered the edgiest version of Link, but ironically when you play the game he turns out to be the friendliest, he has a heartwarming smile that you never see on any other Link, the way he cares about his friends or even complete strangers, he's probably the most hopeful Link I've seen
... holy cow, he is. He's an unpretentious farm boy in love with his childhood sweetheart, he roams across the entire known world to rescue his friends
(old and new), and carries the weight of the entire world while still honoring and encouraging all the people and different cultures he comes across. He even pets all the kitty cats!
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
I've always seen Twilight Princess Link as the Link who sees things the most realistically. All the tales of OOT seen through someone else's eyes. Through a less magical and more realistic lens.
The Hero of Time long dead, teaching Link fighting lessons and harshly reprimands him if failing said lesson. Rotting and spiritual, but actually speaks in a way people didn't in OOT. Which shows us things were different than originally depicted.
Many of the magical things in the world are seen, but not explained, leaving Link to wonder what happened in the past. Too much time has passed, and nobody is alive who knows. Like the murals depicting the Hero in the Arbiter's grounds and the Temple of Time. He's there, but we don't know what he did. We never will.
TP had its flaws, but the story was decent. I wouldn't call it dark, just more of a practical take on a magical journey.
@@WyteNikesNLazerLitez the stalfos part is one theory. Don’t Forget Majora’s Mask: in that game he was supposed to search for a friend he can trust and see himself. BUUUUT! The other theory is that Termina and the 4 country are the purgatory and Link is dead but doesn’t want to accept it. Sadly it’s the most logical theory where you see the different phase of the acceptance of the death. Like the sadness, the deni and all. I don’t remember all of them. But you’re not wrong either, it says in the game OOT only Kokiri can travel the forest… but why did we got to the Forest temple…
@@sabrinaberube the Link turning into a Stalfos was confirmed by Nintendo.
"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
-C.S. Lewis
Love that man.
Thought this it said Louie CK for a second there
@@benwashacked3350 Goodness no😂
@@benwashacked3350 Would that subtract from the meaningfulness of the statement?
@@preeperdeep705 I mean he did masturbate in front of women and got arrested for it so a little bit
"Being messed up is not a theme. Darkness is not a narrative. Violence on its own is not mature." Thank you for that.
everyone who makes video essays needs to hear this
Like he says, going "hurr durr look dark and messed up me are adult" is ultimately pretty juvenile. Darkness doesn't make a story. A wise message.
Basically my opinion of Devilman Crybaby summed up in a single paragraph.
Try to even imply this message in a _Warhammer 40K_ thread and enjoy the flood of "HERESY" responses and meme-centric threats of violence for daring to speak your mind.
@@alexschott2092 That's 'cause after they started writing lore into the sourcebooks and stitching the universe together into something coherent, they wrote it well and included a lot of actual themeing and such. WH40K hasn't been just violence for violence's sake since like, 1990.
I recently replayed Ocarina of Time and it shocked me how sad that game is. By the end of the game, all of Link's closest friends are gone or don't know why he is the hero. His closet companion abandons him and it feels like he's left hollow the land he saved and unable to find a home in it. He gives up everything, including his title, to stop Ganondorf gaining nothing in return. The greatest gift he gave to Hyrule was to make sure it never knew it was in danger while it steals his soul.
The worst part is he didn't have a choice in the matter, he was destined to lose everything.
One might say that the game was rigged from the start.
@@qkb217 Expecting to see "Can you beat New Vegas as Link?" in my suggestions now.
@@James11111 And turns out "Link" just means this really weird specific console command thing that *kind of* makes you have a boomerang maybe I guess? And the rules are impossible halfway through so half the video is spent purely on the theoretical, and yet it's still worth watching just for the humor.
Link can also never go back home again. Because he loses Navi (his connection to kokiri forest), if he returns to the lost woods, he will die and become a stalfos. As it turns out, the hero's shade in twilight princess is actually the link from ocarina of time, who had since become a stalfos after trying to return home to kokiri forest.
Such a sad ending for a great hero story.
Considering that Miyamoto states that The Legend of Zelda was inspired by how he explored the countryside as a kid, it makes sense that a core of the series is, "There is a world out there! And while it can be dark and overwhelming at times, is also so so incredibly beautiful and fun"
"Oh I'm sorry, if you can't handle a bloody nose then I suggest you run home and hide under your bed. It's not safe here! There are wonders both sublime and grotesque..." -Q, star trek
So follow this corridor and do this very specific thing to advance to the next room...
@@AlfredoPuente8 "You go into a room, look around, shoot the eyeball, and move to the next room. Is that, is that even a puzzle? Is that fun for people? I get that it's all 3D now and it's new and ur not getting all the information when walking into a room, but to STOP all your forward momentum, just to do the same open sesame trick you did seven times already, sucks. [skyward sword voice] 'hey man it's not that bad u get used to it' "DON'T-- don't act like you can join this conversation skyward sword. We're like, having a moment here? You're not invited." - arin, sequelitis on OoT -- really good essay on how a lot of the clunkier mechanics in OoT were a result of the jump from 2D to 3D combat, and 3D in general
I legit explore wherever I go and when people ask I always say, "Zelda games taught me that"....and then come back from the woods with a ton of loot like feathers, bones, etc because I am good at finding things apparently lol.
@@AlfredoPuente8 Am I the only one that searches the rooms endlessly for items at the expense of play time? lol. Espeically in BOTW. Spend 4 hours collecting eggs, apples, wood, and flint before even trying the first tasks XD.
"Although time moves inexorably forward, and yes, everyone will eventually die that doesn't mean that the present is a lost cause" I cried.
Kinda does tho
@@LiterallyjustmintNot really tho
Man legit wrote the Zelda essay to end all Zelda Essays. Jokes aside, this is some of the most original commentary I've seen in quite a while. Phenomenal work.
It kind of is one of the most notable video essays on Zelda so far, my hope is that enough people watch this video that the "X Zelda is best because it's the darkest" sentiment dies away in the fandom. It's frankly quite juvenile and I think the Zelda series deserves better praise than just "ooh, dark video game".
I also think this video is a great intro for video game fans to the greater world of literary children's media like "The Little Prince", "Watership Down" or "The Hobbit"; or for people who read literature to see this and realize that video games like Zelda are a lot richer thematically than they initially would have thought, and is thus changed on their opinion on video games as art. The more people that give Zelda a chance, the happier I am.
Yeah this is truly the darkest Zelda video essay.
Sometimes I wonder if the entire machinery of evolution, of human development and society, all of this history and wars fought and battles won and lost, was for the purpose of producing essays about Zelda on TH-cam, preferably with the mid-20's/30's white dude, usually but not always Canadian, sitting in a pastoral landscape, reading it out to a camera
@@grey_f98 I 100% agree that dark Zelda =/= good Zelda. My favourite Zelda game is Breath of the Wild. Not because it's dark or anything, but because the gameplay is fun. I had more fun playing it than with any other Zelda game, so it's my favourite.
I end a lot of Jacob Geller videos thinking, "This is my favorite Jacob Geller video," but this might really be my favorite Jacob Geller video.
Fear of cold is my favorite one. But this one, close contender.
How tf did you comment 22 hrs ago, the video was posted 2 mins ago
Every Jacob Geller video is your favourite Jacob Geller video
@@iPlayGamesX patrons get access a day early 😎
@@jacksoningram4314 oh that makes sense, my bad. Respect 👍
When this video hits, it really hits, and then it does it 7 more times in a row
Lol I came to this video right after seeing one of yours
And the 7 times it hits represents the seven deadly sins!!!
Muda
Summary of the whole channel
I was genuinely about to cry... and then I get hit with "ganondorf is the hottest zelda character" and a razor advert
I was already crying at that point, which made it WAY weirder
@@OlleLindestad oh god ouch
Nice 😂
truth is only worthwhile if it leads to more truth, and ganondorf IS the hottest zelda character
The Mario iceberg: “every main character represents a deadly sin”
Also the Mario iceberg: “the mushroom kingdom is in wales”
I fucking knew it! It was Wales all along!
Are we talking about Mario and not Howl's Moving Castle?
@@3asianassassin GAME THEORY: IS PRINCESS DAISY’S KINGDOM ALBANIA??
🤣
is bowser saddam hussein?
can't believe i missed this one, such an important cathartic message. " 'being messed up' is not a theme" is an all time good line.
this video shits on grimdark lol
Not true though. You and this pretentious POS are wrong
@@champagnesupernova1839Ye that's cause "grimdark" sux
@@Nate_tmcrthe phrase “grimdark” originates from Warhammer 40k, which has been rife with political themes about the horrors of fascism for decades. The setting baths in its edginess more nowadays, but let’s not pretend that grimdark has no value
@@scepta101totally! like regardless of how differently it's defined these days, the original concept of grimdark was super fascinating and definitely rooted in some important social commentary and discourse
I cannot believe this video just made me cry and then hit me with the notion that Ganon's eyebrows connect to his hairline like a ton of bricks
I've just never had an original experience, huh?
bro thats my thoughts too, literally started tearing up
@@AshyMuted it's the intended experience
That shit made me laugh so hard at the end but def convinced me to buy
I told myself I wasn't going to cry, but dangit, I definitely teared up
This is exactly why Twilight Princess is my favourite entry in the series. Not because of its edge lord tone and twisted elements, but - like you said - because those things are used to highlight kindness, friendship, community, warmth... It's absolutely beautiful.
The spiral into assigning “the darkest Zelda game” faster each time is one of the most original video game commentaries I’ve ever heard
Ok but what about the theory that Jacob cut himself shaving and this video is his hallucination as he bleeds out??
In so ,would make this ….
*Jacobs darkest video*
Holy crap
Still not dark enough, apparently.
"Easier ways to get DMT, bro."
- Joe Rogan, probably.
Wtf
“We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation. ”
― Hayao Miyazaki
"I shat myself"
-Eminem
If anyone understands darkness in media, it’s that man!
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
@@WyteNikesNLazerLitez he gets married to marron and has children. Canon btw
@@villaniousmustache4898 While there are strong indications that he did marry Malon it is not 100% confirmed.
You just turned a bunch of games that I've never played into a metaphor that makes me proud to live the life I've been given and take pride in opening doors for strangers and comforting my toddler when she cries. You are a bard of the modern age. I anticipate the back catalog I have yet to listen to and anticipate everything that is to come. Thank you.
Ok link. Time to go save hyrule now
beautifully said!
That’s the one thing I make sure to tell people when they’re talking about kids, you once shit your pants to don’t get so mad, you or many people you know snuck out, you lied, you stole from, you didn’t understand the world and having to work to pay bills at one point. It’d be nice to explain these things to kids but let them be kids, absolutely make sure they know right from wrong but let them be kids and experience things for themselves or at least enjoy the little bits.
"Being messed up is not a theme. Darkness is not a narrative." Great point along with what you were saying about how we think adult readings are more interesting than happier ones. It reminds me a lot of my favourite passage from Ursula K Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting." Excellent video. Thank you.
Yeah but then you learn that the Omelas thing was about how the scifi community at the time at least around Berkley knew two of its big founders and "Networking" people (Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband) were massive child rapists and nobody had the balls to turn them in...
Ursula K Leguin is the example I was looking for, thanks
I agree with that quote
I remember reading that short story for school and I really appreciated that message.
Yes, we sometimes hear a whole generation talking about how we are all broken. But being broken is boring…they are obsessing with their weaknesses. This is a sad acknowledgment of a terrible lack of education on history. People have written about the human condition and young people acknowledging it in such a trivial way lacks insight.
You hit the nail on the head with this one.
What makes Zelda games so good it's not that they are "secretly" dark, edgy, and adult. They never try to hide it.
What makes them amazing pieces of art, it's that *despite* all of that, they show you the beauty of all the small things the world has to offer.
In Majora's Mask, the world will end in 3 days, and yet, most people still try to live their lives, find beauty and love each other, which is powerful
Its kind of amazing how I want to be able to live in the various versions of Hyrule, just sit and chill and watch the clouds float by, even while there's a constant sense of impending doom because the world is about to end or someone you love is suffering
Just let me fish without guilt, Nintendo
Hablate de zelda un dia pollo.
i feel like when people say a kid's thing is "secretly" dark, they really mean "i didnt notice how dark it was when i was a kid"
Too true. The Zelda series has never been about shoving 'gritty' in your face. The dark parts are purposely overshadowed by a light hero story, but those that can comprehend the implications of its lore see a very dark undertone, that can't be ignored when considering the motives of the characters.
This is kinda like what makes Zelda lore so awesome: that the games don't regularly emphasize every crucial aspect of the lore, and instead you have to piece it together like a 'meta-puzzle', or whatever. The darkness is just one aspect.
@@jimmybean420 I think there might be a word or two missing. From context, it seems like it's meant to be "What makes these games amazing pieces of art".
Of course amazing art can look many different ways, but this is specifically about Zelda.
"... is the darkest Zelda" I know it's coming every time but every time it cracks me up more and more. This video is art.
Pure art. This should be most of the internet.
i was not expecting this to be so artfully done! Pleasantly surprised!
No it's not, this person really really needs to get over himself
the conclusion to this video almost put me to tears. the real world is such a horrid place to be, but it's filled with so much beauty too. It's worth fighting for.
Then go fight for it
@@Dontworryaboutit961 i know your comment is purposefully antagonizing but to take it seriously for a moment, i think the mundanity of daily life is also in itself a form of fighting for the world; you spend your days making choices when pure inaction is always presenting itself as an option, to choose existence over nonexistence is a fight to me, and what are you if not a piece of the world
“There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.” - Samwise Gamgee
30:53 made me remember this quote from C.S. Lewis:
"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up".
I remember a piece of this quote or one like it, being misused by Bill Maher in one of his increasingly right wing New Rules segments about Stan Lee and comics.
I love this quote!
Told my nephew one to never be intimidated by someone who yells, "I'm a grown-ass man!" At you.
He isn't hollering at you; he's trying to reassure himself.
I believe he was referring to 1 Corinthians 13:11 of the KJV of the Bible, where Paul writes “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Matthew also writes a quote from Jesus in response to the question “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” and Jesus replies(Matthew 18: 1-5): “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
Viewed in and out of the religious context, all these writers support the idea that a real adult is humble enough to know that they are not above “childish things”: their knowledge and comprehension are limited. In doing so they are more readily able to learn and to grow from just about anything, just as young children are trying their best to make sense of the world they are put in.
well holy shit i haven't even watched the video yet, and i gotta say that's a beautiful quote
So I just watched this for the second time.
Can I just say how impressive this is? This man wrote seven or eight different essays about how the darkness in different Zelda games serves primarily to show how bright their light shines, and then spliced them all together to make a super-essay discussing the usage of darkness not only in the Zelda series, but more generally in narrative and our examination of that narrative.
Like, holy shit.
It was so good
Jacob Geller is trully a KINO video-essay youtuber.
right up there with SuperEyepatchWolf & Joseph Anderson. (atleast, according to me) (idk if any of these guys i referenced have / had / will have any bad blood with the greater internet, im just some guy commenting on a Zelda video) (so give me some slack if anything bad happens / has happened)
@@BobbinRobbin777 Emplemon too
@@alface935 heck yeah, love that guy too.
@@BobbinRobbin777 He started TH-cam back in the day making TH-camPoops (YTPs) while he was just a kid learning how to edited a video what a hero
“And we are left with Hope.” That’s a summery of the entire series. Zelda is about Hope.
Everything is about hope
It’s actually about Bombchus, but whatevs.
@@JohnnyDIles A tale of Bombchus and wishing we had more of them
I'm pretty sure its about exploration.. considering the series is based on the creator exploring the wooded mountainside as a child. But the hope thing is cool too.. there is a real feeling of childlike wonder in exploring these games, that inspires a hopeful feeling, and creates a beautiful juxtaposition with the dark themes.
The last 5 minutes of this essay HITS. Thank you for putting this together, this whole concept is hard to explain to people. This is why I love Zelda - they're all dark, but they're all stories of hope and perseverance
Exactly as intended; a story of the clashes of light and darkness.
The build up & execution of the multiple ____ IS THE DARKEST ZELDA clips was so well done. Fantastic video all around.
What's up dpad
When you talked about children's books with deep themes only appreciated when read later in life, Michael Ende's books immediately came to mind. My father read momo and the neverending story to me several times when I was younger (as my grandfather did for him), and every time I reread them I discover new meanings and themes I didn't pick up on before. If I ever have children, I'll definitely continue the tradition.
It feels like Ende is not loved sufficiently in the English-speaking audience, and that feels deeply wrong.
Yesssss these books came to mind for me too! A friend of mine told me once after rereading Momo that he "wished every book was like that"
Oh my god so I’m not the only person who knows the book!
@@VsevolodKhusid Probably because many native English speakers don't care about stuff produced in other languages, besides some exceptions.
At least I heard they often don't watch non-English movies because they care so much about the lipsync.
@@omeragam8628 Maybe I should start reading his books. I watched a lot of adaptations, especially when I was younger (they play stuff like that in theaters (not cinemas) in Germany, where I live and where the author is from, and I've been there with school or family).
I didn't expect anyone from outside of Germany would know him.
Actually the true darkest Zelda game is Phantom Hourglass due to the unending torment and anguish I experienced at having to complete the Temple of the Ocean King 5+ times.
Also when you said you might spoil Animorphs I heard it as animals and was like "all of them?"
Yes the goodest Bois shall get spoiled
Thank you! Everyone seems to forget about phantom hourglass
I loved the phantom hourglass as a kid. Finding all the ways to speedrun the temple of the ocean king, the new paths that opened with every new item, it tickled a certain part of my brain. Some people also find that torturous. I have in a game played a level that is shorter than 10 seconds for probably close to 200 hours. Its for me, but not for everyone.
Hahaha
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." -Ursula K. Le Guin
Less than ten seconds in and I’ve already been mentally cheese-necked by the phrase “also I’m gonna spoil Animorphs” I cannot WAIT to see how existentially raw I’m gonna be after this one
So? Were you existentially raw?
What the fuck is cheese-necking
Bro i have no idea but i have been laughing for ten minutes by that and your fucking response so thank you both lmao
As a massive life-long Animorphs I had to rewind about 3 times to make sure that was actually what he said. I’m so used to it being the hyperniche thing that I care about and no one else does and hearing someone I know and respect casually namedrop it was utterly wild
@@Gortanckla Given that it is paired with the phrase "existentially raw", I think it was meant to evoke the feeling of taking a chess grater to your neck.
I think this is also why Link always has the Triforce of Courage. It's not because he's brave enough to defeat ganon, but because he's brave enough to continue after his victory, to leave the comfort of what he knows to pursue better things after the smoke clears
Except he doesn’t always have the triforce of courage. He doesn’t have it in Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures, Phantom hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Link’s Awakening or the original Zelda game. And presumably not in BOTW either.
@@enesaue2192 He always has it. He just doesn't always know it.
@@TheEndKing In Skyward sword, all triforce pieces are hidden in a temple, and then Link finds them and put them together on the goddess statue. From there on, it’s in the temple of time until Ganondorf splits it in Ocarina of Time, meaning Minish Cap and Four Swords Link never touches it (makes sense, those games never reference the triforce at all). Link having the triforce of courage in OoT is actually treated as a new and extraordinary thing in the story of that game.
In the Downfall timeline, Ganon takes all triforce pieces, and keeps them until he is defeated in Link to the Past, in which the whole triforce is owned by the royal family until Zelda 2’s manual backstory (Which takes place between Triforce Heroes and Zelda 1). Then, the triforce of courage is hidden, and is hidden until Link manually collects it in Zelda 2.
In the Adult timeline. The triforce of courage is hidden in fragments under the sea, and Wind Waker Link needs to manually collect them. At the end of that game, all 3 triforce pieces are united, and then the triforce is buried under the sea forever. No one has any triforce pieces in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.
In the Child timeline, the triforce of courage is presumably inherited by the Hero of Time’s descendents, like Twilight Princess Link. However, Four Swords Adventures Link is not (confirmed to be) in their familial lineage, and the triforce is never mentioned in that game, so we can assume he doesn’t have it.
@@enesaue2192 Sounds like he really needed a lot of courage in those situations.
@@TheEndKing Yep, Link has an extraordinary amount of courage, which is why the triforce piece often finds its way into him. But he often doesn’t have the physical triangle.
“Light and Darkness. One can’t exist without the other.”
Zelda is one of the few franchises that understands that to be factual. For every goofy forest creature, there’s a gruesome war that happened ages ago, for every tragedy, there’s a quiet little village, full of welcoming people and things to do. That is what Zelda is. Light in darkness.
The series epitomizes the struggle between light and dark. Nothing is hopeless, but at the same time... it's not easy either.
Light in darkness, or, as the games put it, Shadow.
Well said. This is such a good description of the feeling of the setting in Zelda games. Tragedy and beauty woven together like a tapestry.
If you destroy one side of the coin, the coin simply ceases to exist.
Someday darkness will cease to exist and it will be perfect.
I've been weirdly saving this video in my watchlist for a "right occasion" for months now and I'm glad I did. I recently finished totk and this was the perfect moment for me to see this wonderfully put together essay on something that means the world to me. In the best way possible, I am crying in the middle of the night and feeling all the emotions these games have awoken in me so long ago and I'm grateful for that. Thank you for making this.
I like this game
Right there with you crying to this in the night lol
Windwaker Ganon will always be my favorite Villain in the franchise. This iteration of Ganondorf is the most human, the most relatable. He isn't on a pursuit of power fuelled by ambition or greed. He just wants his world back, the Hyrule that he genuinely loved. The flood separated the races of hyrule, forced to live in small, secluded islands with little contact between them. The ocean, so vast it can't possibly be swam across, doesn't even yield edible fish to catch. In every sense of the word, the gods doomed the people of this land. Ganondorf challenges the very gods that flooded the world to seal him and demands they give him his world back. Even in his dying breath his only thoughts are of the winds of Hyrule Field he so coveted.
And this is why Ganon, is the hottest zelda character
It remminds me of a comment/mini essay (i think it was in TvTropes) that discuses the diference between WW Ganondorf and TP Ganondor,.
In WW, after the goddesses flooded Hyrule, Ganondorf ended up alone and with the knowledge themselves opposed him, and thus he turned inward, contemplating and reflecting on his life, and the world that he used to inhabit, thus when we met him we see a lot calmer than he was on OoT.
Meanwhile in TP, he was arrested before he could enact his plan, so for him it was just his political rivals obstructing his plans, them when he was about to be executed, the triforce of power woke within him, as is to signal the goddesses themselves supported him, and finally when he was sealed in the twilight realm he found the twli who were exiled from the light realm, and more importantly Zant, who just like him was resentful of the current leader, wiahed for more power and was willing to treat Ganondorf as a god, all of that just fed his ego, thus when we finally comfront him in TP, he still is in essence a fearsome warlord, in a mission for conquest and a desire for revenge against hyrule aand the princess' chosen,
one forced him to reflect ,the other made him double down in his thirst tor conquest
@@dumpsockpuppet5619 couldn’t agree more
@@dumpsockpuppet5619 So all of TP is Din's fault. I knew she was the worst one of the 3 goddess
There is, actually, an Aonuma interview where he explains why majora's mask came ou the way it did:
1 - being pressured to rush the game leading to stress and anxiety, with these feelings spilling into the game.
2 - short time to develop and test everything, so if something was implemented and it worked, it was staying in, no second thought.
Just like my college projects!
Dark as Majora's Mask is, it's heartwarming to see Link be so helpful towards a bunch of strangers' troubles if he completes the Bombers' Notebook.
Yeah. I had never felt as much satisfaction when doing side quests as much as I did in this game.
The bombers Notebook was short, but incredibly worth the time.
@@vcdgamerIt was one of my favorite aspects of the game, because it made me realize for the first time that this world is inhabited by people. By then I rarely formed attachment to NPC's, they were mostly static, giving one or two dialogues and that was it, but Majora's Mask made me care for these people.
I felt so mercenary. Completing these quests for my own reward just to reset the timeline keeping my reward and erasing their happiness.
I think majoras mask is about trauma even the game acknowledges it when the giants forgive skull kid and he forgives them for abandoning him, their childhood friend. And then the giants tell link to forgive his friend… who I think is meant to be Navi, for abandoning him. That and how the theme of a never ending cycle of impending doom happening all over again while you can’t do anything to stop it is literally the definition of ptsd
I just love the way you can string together a whole web of interconnected ideas seamlessly. It’s basically how the human mind operates bouncing from one thought to the next but to be able to concisely articulate that is something else.
one of my absolute favorite part of this guys essays is his talent in doing that - maybe its just pleasing my pattern seeking brain but it really helps get his ideas across to me
You perfectly articulated why I love him
“Walking backwards into culture.”
That’s got to be my absolute favorite description of that feeling.
This was an absolute love letter to the Zelda franchise and from those whom admire it, thank you.
I remember playing spirit track when i was little and loving it, no idea if it was because of the inherent darkness and the contrast it builds with the hopeful story or if it was because I'm autistic and really liked driving the train.
"One war immediately segues into another" is also a theme for Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. Like slew Gannon and rescued Zelda, but Gannon's minions survive and remain loyal to him, seeking out Link's blood to sprinkle over Gannon's ashes to revive him. These references to blood and human sacrifice remained intact even in 1980s Nintendo's localization censorship.
The Game Over screen of Zelda 2 used to scare me as a kid because it literally implies that your death caused Ganon to return. Every time you die and ‘Game Over’, it means that evil has prevailed. The looming picture of Ganon and his laugh were a pretty good way to convey that with the limited capacity the NES had.
Actually, Ganon was utterly, and completely gone. Nothing existed of him: His soul and all.
In fact, Link also destroyed the Curse that kept him reviving. So, his followers needed the blood of the person who killed him to revive him. Pretty dark theme.
@@HylianKirbo If Gannon's soul was utterly and completely gone, then no magic would bring him back because there'd be no soul to inhabit the resurrected body.
Link _did_ , however, have the Triforce of Power after winning that fight in the first game and presumably kept it in Zelda 2.
Your reading might be a little more hardcore but A) that's not what's actually in the text of the game itself or its manual and B) it's kinda nonsense.
The only version of Ganon utterly destroyed and _permanently_ prevented from reviving was Wind Waker, and not because of Link stabbing his brains out, but because of the King using the Triforce wish to wish Ganon would be unable to keep coming back - and since Hyrule existing means Ganon can in fact eventually come back, it granted this by letting the last remnant of Hyrule be destroyed in the flood waters.
@@RoninCatholic ?
Nah, there is a type of *regen* that Fiction has. In fact, it's called Mid Godly Regen.
Demise went through the same thing: His soul was eradicated across time and whatnot. However, Girahim needed Hylia's Divine Essence to make a ritual to revive him. You can contruct a soul again, after destruction through means.
Link didn't have the triforce of power in that fight: He used the triforce of wisdom to totally annihilate Ganon. It's not nonsense, it's quite literally the plot, and end of the Timeline. There is no curse for Ganon to revive with, so his followers need the blood of link to do as such.
As for Wind Waker.
That's also false. Ganon's curse is a reliant immortality- it will exist as long as set concepts exist. For instance, it's reliant upon the concept of the Reincarnation Bloodline. He will always spawn an incarnation of his hatred to cause chaos to Link and Zelda's Bloodline.
The King ultimately wished for the History of Hyrule to be erased: essentially, a new world. Demise's Curse is still present, and he just comes back in differing forms.
@@HylianKirbo I didn't say Link had the Triforce of Power to defeat Gannon, I said he collected the Triforce of Power _after_ defeating him at the end of the first game.
And no, it's just complete utter conceptual nonsense for the soul to be destroyed and have _the same individual_ in any way revived afterward.
And further, what can you cite to back up _your_ claims that Gannon was so thoroughly destroyed at the end of the first game? It's pretty clear in context that Gannon's ashes are still there, and presumably also his soul.
And that "formal" name for this "type" of resurrection being "Mid Godly Regen"? This some formal power scaling terminology? Because it's a dumb term and doesn't even describe then power.
The Legend of Zelda is a great example of the stark difference between "grimdark" storytelling and "mature" storytelling. The games have many dark elements that, when taken out of context, can be used as an "OMG look how DARK this game is" as you pointed out in your video. But Zelda games always manage to pull you back into the light because every game is about people staying hopeful in a dark world that wants them dead. The endings of Zelda games also stick out like a sore thumb compared to Nintendo's other flagships. Rarely does Zelda games end with a no-strings-attached happy ending and usually ends with Link left to pick up the pieces after he "wins". It forces you to think about what would happen next and it's main reason why this franchise is my favorite to this day.
Also Ganondorf's "Your gods destroyed you!" line from Wind Waker still gives me absolute shivers today
Links dumbass ain’t gonna be rebuilding no burning villages he a fighter and a knighter
Honestly, I feel like this complaint can b easily lodged against the Sonic games, especially the more serious ones; even though I think only a couple like Shadow The Hedgehog who's maturity is so thin and fake that I don't believe it tricked anyone over 12. But I believe that at least the games from 1998-2009 were the mature Sonic games; in Sonic Adventure 1, taken over by a lust for power, the leader of the Knuckles clan sends his men to charge after her own daughter and innocent chao, an action that would lead to Chaos awakening and sending the Echidna's to near extinction.
In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow can be a metaphor for how revenge plagues our minds after a tragedy; as his memories have been specifically altered by his creator Gerald to believe that Shadow's best friend Maria's dying wish was for Shadow to take revenge on humanity. In the end Shadow realises Maria's true wish to save humanity after his mind is cleared and he (at that time) sacrifices his life to save the Earth. During the ending cutscene, Rouge asks Sonic if Shadow was really created to exact revenge on humanity to which Sonic shrugs it off and says "He was what he was, a heroic hedgehog, who gave his life to save the Earth"
In Sonic and The Black Knight, the main conflict towards the end of the story is when the twist villain Merlina takes the powers of the main villain and starts corrupting the world in a way so it will never end; having seen the tragedy that will come later in life, she's scared of seeing her world end so she does everything in her power to stop it until she's defeated by Sonic who in the end simply says "Merlina... Every world has its end. I know that's kinda sad, but... That's why we gotta live life to the fullest in the time we have. At least, that's what I figure."
@@sketchsskotch1073 god I fucking love sonic he is my second favorite hedgehog after shadow
I don't understand the appeal of grimdark. "Everything sucks, everything has sucked, everything will continue to suck". Where's the enjoyment in that? Thanks, I'm depressed now I guess
@@The_Jovian When everything sucks and will continue to suck, you can feel better about committing war crimes in Warhammer 40k or whatever idk
This legitimately made me cry. And then you hit us with the “Ganondorf” is the hottest Zelda character” and damn, just perfect timing on your part.
And by far the best villain besides Skull Kid.
It just hits you with the "there are 2 kinds of people in this world" joke
I cried too
It's funny, because now I catch myself crying at the end of The Minish Cap. Like this is the most bright Zelda game, the most fairy tale Zelda game.
Yet it introduced something that I never understood as a kid: letting go when the time is over.
During that game, you meet with Minish creatures (or Picori, in English, I think). They are only seen by children. You evolve from a child to someone walking on clouds to save your best friend.
At the end, the door between the Minish and the Human worlds close.
You say goodbye to your mentor.
Silence.
Staff roll.
That was an adventure. Your very own first adventure (it was the first Zelda game I was able to finish). And when the time comes, you have to move on.
After finishing that game, as a kid, I did my first accomplishment of finishing a Zelda game. After finishing that game, as an adult, I understood how childhood must be protected.
“A book written for children that can only be enjoyed by children is a terrible children’s book”
- C. S. Lewis
(Probably a slight paraphrase)
“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
-C.S Lewis
I love CS Lewis. He brought me closer to God.
@@maybeitsgabriel3035 For a time, i tought that was Wind Waker.
George Lucas needs to read this
@@James-wn4fcBack then with The Holiday Special, The Clone Wars (movie) and Return of The Jedi?
Definetly.
I really appreciate how well you summed up that childhood need to experience dark media. I feel like so often adults think they need to scrub children's media of anything scary or violent in some bid to protect a kid's innocence. But goodness knows I read so many dark books as a kid, and I couldn't really articulate why I loved them so much until you put it into words. It was a search for experiences I hadn't had yet and for emotions I couldn't yet unravel. So thanks!
This has always been weird to me, considering that the Bible is considered appropriate for children despite its content
i was thinking the exact same thing when he used the "trial run" idea! i think it's important for kids to be exposed to somewhat dark/scary things in a safe and controlled environment like fiction so that those things don't completely blindside them in real life. i'm not saying to show kids media that will like, utterly horrify them or whatever, but a little dark stuff is good imo!
Avatar the last airbender is a good example of this
It also works the other way around considering how many times I've seen adults basically throw tantrums when children's media have the audacity to not include them. Feel like every cartoon has the need to shoehorn in an unnecessary, "mature" (for them) over arching story
Childhood afterall is meant to be an evolution into adulthood. Not that they be a child forever...I think too many societies have this weird obsession with maintaining youth and purity and...they're inherently delusional over how nature and time is an eventuality. Doing that gives you a sheltered adult with no real-world skills or coping mechanisms to handle life. Hell I still remember the absolute neutering 80's and 90's cartoons got.
Here I was, crying my eyes out like a little baby… and then you hit me with “Ganandorf is the hottest Zelda character” lmao
Me too!!
Me too! 😂😂😂
CLEARLY Link is the hottest. I’m going to have to unsubscribe. It’s unacceptable for someone to spread misinformation so blatantly.
Rofl sameeee
He's caked up, especially in pig form.
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."
-J.R.R. Tolkien
This really is a good tone, im so tired of people acting like darkness and violence are inherently mature and surperior to happy endings. It never felt fulfilling, its like being told that eating flavorless spicy peppers is better than cake.
Yes!!
That’s the problem with most “bad ending” games. The endings are flavorless. If you manage to pull off a bad ending that’s nit so much as bad as it is “it’s not the best, but we’re doing better/fixing it,” then it’s alright. If you manage to make a good bad ending that isn’t ahhh nooo we all r dying aghgahyguj then it’s just flavorless. But if you manage to give it a bit of flavor beyond that, then it’s great. And hey, some spicy peppers, when they taste pretty good, are sometimes better then just straight cakes, right?
I do unironically prefer spicy peppers to cake though
@@3a.m.284 I may be wrong, but I believe what L0velessL0ver tried to say is you'd only be receiving the sensation of pain from flavorless ones by choosing/preferring them over cake which represents the presence of flavor.
@@3a.m.284 spicy pepper gang
What's most striking to me about a lot of "actually fucked up" readings is how much it's clear that they don't believe what they're saying either. And I think it speaks to a larger culture of viewing media analysis as a competitive sport. It's not an exploration on themes and intended messages vs. interpreted ones. Instead, media analysis is when you can get people to say, "wow, I can't believe it's actually fucked up" and the more people say it, the better you are.
It's fanfiction for the people that are too lazy or embarrassed to write actual fanfiction.
@@drake1360 It reminds me of a person who made a RWBY meme of how his world is much better than the original.
Then you realize he actually never did anything and more fanfiction is actually written than his concept that never made past the first sentence.
In the end, he used a meme to rally everyone into thinking his daydreams is as thought out than fanfictions that are actually written and have plot, characterisation, and story.
I offer that meme to actual writers and not the meme creator who never wrote anything.
I hate it when people do this stuff. a good one is shiver star from kirby 64 actually being post-apocalyptic earth, because kirby is pretty dark so that's a thing they would do, and it doesn't make the whole story of 64 "eff'd up" (more than it actually is, of course). a bad one is kirby being evil. he's not evil. shut up matpat.
the line “he goes from a boy who doesn’t fit in, to an adult who learns he can adapt to anything” made me start welling up tears
Finally, someone who understands the deeper meaning within Triforce Heroes in that no matter what you do, the clothes will always make the man.
I love realistic optimism. Truly what is to be done with a miserable world but to take it in your stride, and to see the beauty that hides behind that ominous, threatening mask that life wears to scare you away. Anyone that can be kind or see true value of simple joy in the face of anything has my respect.
The absolute straight-laced delivery of "because ______, is the darkest Zelda" caught me ever so slightly off guard each time. Chuckles for days
"because ______, is my favorite store on the Citadel."
@@Blitzenpferd I'm commander Shepherd and this is my favorite comment on youtube
"We are left with darkness, yes, a threat that never quite dissapears... But we're left with hope, too"
The Legend of Zelda can touch a lot of dark themes throughout the games, but one theme prevails: Hope
(Amazing video, truly amazing)
That's the theming I've always loved about the series. Sometimes it genuinely gets to feelings of oppressive darkness, but it's always ended on a note of "but it's okay", and I adore that. The acceptance of the darker parts of these fictional worlds written into the fiction itself is so well done, it's not mindless like a "and the day is saved and everything was good from then onward!" No, it's triumph over darkness that leaves for a time, but returns eventually, so that another may triumph over it once more. And it's in these triumphs that it is shown why the seemingly eternal struggle between the two opposed forces is seen as worth it, because the thing that's being fought for is the triumphant, happy, upbeat, joyful, sometimes humorous moments, not the perpetuating of more darkness.
One thing that usually helps me get people interested in The Legend of Zelda series is telling them that Ganon is a just as important part of the triforce as Link or Zelda, that the entire lore's balance basically relies on the fact that these three always exist together.
35:59 Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Jacob, you’ve hit a theme in my life that’s been coming up a lot lately: “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and Porter Robinson’s “Nurture” both have this theme of compassion and kindness in the midst of hardship… it’s a message that I need, one I think we all need right now. The world is a scary place. Life is hard. Maybe nothing matters. But none of these things mean that there isn’t hope, or joy, or comfort… none of them mean that we shouldn’t be kind and love each other.
Thank you for making this. I’m so happy to be growing older with you and experiencing these things in life with someone like you to help make sense of it all.
I so appreciate storytellers articulating this perspective, it’s something I always had trouble verbalizing. So many black-pilled people out there think that optimists are ignorant of the darkness in the world, too stupid to realize how bad things are. But what if we’re aware of all that, accept it, and choose to enjoy life anyway and try to improve it in any little way we can, even if it’s a drop in the bucket? Sure, nothing matters and we’re probably all fucked. So what? I can still make art and love people and enjoy nature. Wallowing in despair isn’t enlightened, it’s lazy.
@@Meraxes6 amen!
I really hope Jacob will cover EEAAO. It has become my favourite movie ever.
I have yet to watch that still, I soo badly want to
They're two of my favourite pieces of art, and I hadn't thought of it that way!
Honestly, what I’ve always like about the Zelda games is the simple fact that, despite how grim or dark everything gets, how hopeless things seem to be, you always prevail in stopping darkness from overtaking everything completely, that light wins out in the end. And even during the times when there is so much darkness, that faint glimmer is enough to make you push back against it all. I also like how Link always is portrayed as the quite hero who silently shoulders the burden of such, sometimes being reluctant, but always forging ahead despite his fears. Courage is the light that keeps us going amidst the dark, the thing that makes us step forward when all others flee, and the Zelda series does an awesome job of proving that fact. So yeah, will always be a Zelda fan no matter how old I get.
Zelda and Lord of the Rings has basically shaped my entire world view.
i literally just wrote a comment on something bout this being the driving force for an idea i had for Link giving up and how Zelda convinces him why they keep fighting anyway. i'll just copy n paste it. but yeah your right.
''watching this makes you realise how much poor Link has been through, rescuing Zelda and Hyrule over and over, as if he's in a perpetual nightmare.
Forever bound to relive and replay saving everyone only to inevitably have to do it all over again because we can't let him rest because we need a Zelda game.
I think it's time Link took a game off.
Maybe he gives up. after so many tries and eventual failures, because if you think about it none of his victories at the end of each game are permanent, so they are just that, failures. So he quits. Leaves for a far off place to wallow in his sorrow.
His depression and melancholy manifest physically somehow and start to transform the world around him to the point it begins to endanger Hyrule.
Only one person can bring him back from the brink and end his sorrow, and that person is Zelda.
For the first time (as far as i know) you play as Zelda. As she learns to do what Link has always done, herself saving others and sometimes failing.
She keeps going so as to save Link, all the while helping people only to see her efforts seem in vain when a character she save dies from something out of her control.
Still she soldiers on.
Meanwhile Links emotions turn darker and the land around becomes more twisted, and now so....does he.
His form begins to change and transform into something dark and hulking. A form we see glimpses of but mostly he is always in shadow, silhouetted against whatever dim light there is where he now resides surrounded by a twisted world of his own making.
Meanwhile Zelda fights on.
Making her way through trial after trial, trials she succeeds at, only for fate to intervene and make her efforts seem pointless. She soldiers on.
Until finally.
She makes it to Link....but he has changed.
He stands, recognition barely flickers in his memory of who she is. his shadow looms over Zelda as his eyes flash towards her, he steps into the light......no...it can't be...it's Ganondorf?
''where's Link? what have you doe with him?'' cries Zelda thinking he has somehow returned and taken Link, and the battle ensues. They fight but as they do Zelda cries for Link, screaming for his return. ''you are nothing compared to Link! nothing'' as she fights she Ganondorf through her tears, her words awaken Link from inside Ganondorf just as she is about to land the killing blow. she brings the sword down and sees....tears? in the eyes of her enemy?
she stops. This isn't really Ganondorf, just Link transformed by his sadness and anger into the thing he has fought so hard to destroy only for it to come back again and again, and so he succumb and let that evil take over and consume him, become him.
But slowly Ganondorf changes back to Link who is now sobbing. ''it's okay'' says Zelda
''I'm here''
She realises through her quest, that Link has been through the same quest a thousand times. saving and helping only for it all to be undone and to have to do it all over time and time again.
But she tells him why she fought on, why she kept going. She kept going for him, and she kept saving and helping people even in the face of inevitable failure because to those people she saved, even if only for a minute. it meant so much to them in that brief moment of peace that all the bad couldn't compare. in a lifetime of war, even a day of peace would be worth fighting for.
And that's it. Hyrule is saved, for now. And Link, whilst still sad, isn't alone.
He never has been.
or something even more tropey and cliched. idk, i'm not a writer, i'm just an idea's guy whatever that means. I just think it would be cool to give the little guy a break, and give the games namesake the lead for once. Not in a forced way like ''oh everyones gender swapping the roles now lets make oceans 12 or ghostbusters with girls'' But in an actual interesting way that makes sense story wise. A story about failure and about why we fight on even in the face of that failure. or something...theres people out there who could do this way better.
heck, it doesnt even have to be a legit game, could be a rom hack, or even just a story. just think it would be interesting to see her perspective of going through what Link has always went through to save everyone.''
damn, i didnt realise how long that was, but again, you're right. even in the face of all that darkness they fight on regardless instead of just giving in. because to give in would be to let it win and take over....and possibly turn you into a manifestation of your greatest enemy/demon and have to be saved for once by someone else who has to remind you of why we fight on against insurmountable odds and in the face of inevitable darkness.
There was exactly one time in Zelda lore when hope completely died and we never got to see it- it was just so bad the Goddesses got off their lazy asses and flooded the place. And even that still didn't really work.
@@D0S81 There is one giant issue with this and its that, Zelda and Link are not the same people during each game. Every link and every zelda is a seperate person that each do their best to fight against evil cause its part of their very being. Link could only be sick of saving the day if he had memories of every adventure and every failure the previous heroes have done. Link is someone that could become jaded but regardless he still wants to live up to his duties, which is what breath of the wild wants to characterize his past as
This is a really good video on the frustrating edges of story discourse. I feel like sometimes people mistake "this thing exists" with analysis by itself, when its place and contextualization in the larger narrative ought to also be considered (and I feel like stopping at 'hey this is dark' can lead to 'and that's why Nemo was dead the whole time I guess' as one tries to contextualizes the tone without grounding it in the existing narrative). Also, for people interested in Wind Waker, the channel Skyehoppers recently put out a video called "The Wind Waker and the Apocalypse" that I highly recommend. It analysis the game specifically as a post-apocalyptic story and doesn't stop at 'hey this is messed up lol' but instead sees what the narrative is doing both island-to-island and on a macro level.
Ugh God bless, you're so right! Analysis shouldn't be "these are the literal recounting of events and some broad speculation" but an engaged inspection of what those events do for the story and how they interconnect to form a message, meaning, and resolution!
Whenever I hear someone call the zelda series kids games I laugh so fucking hard lol
Yeah I am happy that he acknowledged wind waker...
But.. why he didn't talk about minish cap, phantom hourglass and spirits tracks?
For me this video comes of more like “my type of analysis is the only valid analysis”. So what? is a question you can ask until the end of time and no analysis is safe from it, no matter how complex you think it is.
@@GordakiprimeWhy would you laugh? They *are* kids' games. The whole point of this video was to look at the way media aimed primarily at children (The Zelda games) can explore fairly serious topics and themes in a way that even young, inexperienced people can understand.
Jacob even goes so far as to say that this obsession with revisiting media you enjoyed as a child and looking for ways to convince yourself "this was meant for adults the whole time" just to feel like you didn't "waste your time with dumb kid's stuff" is itself childish. As someone who loves the Zelda games, yes, they are definitely, unambiguously "kids games". There's no reason for you to laugh. Rewatch the video lol
this video literally changed my life, it changed my perspective on art and media and how i connect to it and what i get out of it. i would not be writing the stories i write today if not for this video. thank you , jacob geller, for being a turning point for my relationship to stories.
“Where floods failed, sharp violent head trauma succeeds” is a banger of a line
... and that's why Triforce Heroes is the darkest Legend of Zelda.
"Your companions are you, only marked as individuals by their favorite color. Each of them shares your memories, your goals, and your sense of companionship. But only one of you actually experienced those memories. Only one of you has a future. And just think of what it means, that there could be an army of heroes called forth whenever evil threatens...
"But usually, there's just one very quiet child, in over his head."
"And that's why Link's Crossbow Training..."
@@bretsheeley4034 "And that's why the CDI games..."
@@murasakitenin this horrific timeline, bombs can be sold to children if they have the rupees. Despite our main character being a representative of the government itself, this right-libertarian ideology has become so normative that salesmen feel comfortable shaking down children for money to purchase deadly explosives
When you look at the darker, more mature themes it touches on, this is definitely the darkest Jacob Geller video
And HP Lovecraft horror for phantom hourglass and majora mask.
I hate to be a buzzkill, but Susan W. confirmed on Twitter that this Jacob Gellar is actually the great grandfather of the "Cave Video" timeline Jacob Gellar's neighbor.
So technically he hasn't made any "other videos" yet.
There is so much about this video that struck multiple chords, but the way you connected the themes and stories of multiple games together so seamlessly was honestly one of the most incredible narratives I've ever heard, not to even mention the actual insightful and meaningful points made. Amazing work, thank you for sharing this.
The Zelda games augmented my friendship with my sister while we were growing up. We became closer because of our shared loved for these adventures.
Awww♥️
Oh yeah, it's all wholesome fun an games then somehow someone gets stuck in the washer....
*Big Brain:* "[Zelda title] is the darkest Zelda."
*Galaxy Brain:* "[Zelda title] is the darkest Zelda, and yet..."
“... and yet that is why it’s also the most uplifting Zelda.”
My favorite part of wind waker is that that Link wasn't chosen, he was just a kid who wanted to save his sister.
Not nowadays, nowadays the current lore is Link is a disembodied spirit who possesses random children to go on to be the next Link. Hope you didn't like any nuance in WW! It's gone now! Bravo Aonuma!
Not many heroes in Zelda's history are chosen by the triforce, every hero bar TP is not chosen, or chosen very late. My favorite being the Hero of Time, the underdog with 0 family and very few friends because of being a hylian or AKA, the boy without a fairy. First off he wasn't immediately chosen by the master sword so the master sword imprisoned him for 7 years. Robbed of a childhood, he is sent back through time before any evil events occur and notifies Zelda of ganon's plot, which brings me to say that the most interesting concept of the Hero of Time is that he leaves little trace of himself behind after saving the world. No medal of honor or anything. Just some men in black type shit and the time travel is the neuralizer.
I just want to say thank you for adding captions to this video. I can't hear without captions very well, and it limits the number of videos I can watch. This video intrigued me and I probably would have clicked off immediately if there weren't any captions, so I just wanna make sure that the effort doesn't go unnoticed. It really makes all the difference.
27:40
As a kid I was terrified by the sudden horror sweep through Hyrule and didn't touch the game for 3 days. Those zombies and their choking hold man. :D
It's also partially what makes Zelda so interesting. Having been around an alcoholic dad, fighting parents, experiencing bullying at school and playing alone, I think I subconsciously took comfort out of the darker themes and kept coming back for more Zelda games. It was to escape to a world that I took both comfort in and could relate to. The worlds have their darker sides, but the worlds also had their bright sides with charming characters and interesting villages while you are all free to explore around.
What an insightful comment. I guess that is the overall purpose of fantasy: face darker demons and find the light in terrible worlds.
Bro why are you spilling your entire life out in a TH-cam comment
@@Big_Man_W because it's a free world my man
The hero of time has the saddest story ...he is unable to be recognized as a hero by the people of Hyrule because he is sent back to the past after the events of Ocarina, he loses his childhood, every friend and loved one he has. As a result he experiences grief through the events of Majora's mask only to then lose Navi in the lost woods and become lost himself and turn into a stalfos since his is Hylian after all not Kokiri. this is the tragic and beautiful story of the hero of time, the greatest Link of all!
I think I really needed this. With the way the world is and the seeming doom and gloom that we've all been living with in so long... I needed a reminder that even Link, my childhood hero, faced overwhelming darkness and still managed to find good in the world, in people, and himself. It can be so hard to remember sometimes.
Turn off CNN. Thats the 1st step.
@@cult_of_odin and fox
@@SlykRL Stay connected to the toils of the world but don't drown yourself in them.
Something you articulate so well in this video is that conspiracy-theory style "takes" on a story/game's dark, "hidden" meaning can obfuscate what the story actually does in the first place. They trade intentional storytelling decisions and interesting narrative choices for borderline random fan fiction rewrites that ignore everything the story did that was interesting. It's areas like this that I find relevant to distinguish between theories like "Majora's Mask is about the stages of grief" vs. "Majora's Mask is the final moments of Link's dying consciousness." The former may not be the author's intent, but it Dovetails with the themes of the game and what the game is ABOUT. It's an interesting interpretation of a meaningful story that gives back to what it is analyzing. The latter is lazy. It adds nothing of note and actively works AGAINST what the story is doing. Link being "dead" the whole time doesn't make the story any more interesting or valuable and it doesn't mesh with the story's themes.
This reminds me of something Ursula Le Guin wrote about people looking to extract a singular message from her books. Especially in her books aimed at a younger audience, she experienced adults trying to reduce them to a lesson to be learned, a moral to be recited. And her response, which seems equally apt for this conspiratorial reading of art, was that any art worth its salt resists and is ill served by such shallow interpretation. Of course there's nothing wrong with trying to articulate a particular reading of a work, or talking about its themes, even and especially if the author never intended for you to derive that meaning from it. But if you approach a story with some depth and all you come away with is a single sentence platitude or a contrarian theory which has no meaning but being unexpected, then you're probably missing out on a lot.
@Alatar the Blue A theory is "lazy" because you completely ignore what the story actually says in service of what you want it to be. All theories "can be true", all of them are possible, but are you theorizing to better understand the story and how it affects you, or are you simply trying to massage your ego by coming up with a more edgy reading than that of other people?
@Alatar the Blue Way to miss the point of both my reply and the video itself. By your logic, all the pretentious edgy theories that annoy people are "valid" because they might have worked hard on them.
Clearly you have a fragile ego, but no one is obligated to respect what you say or what you believe. Just because you sound smart doesn't mean you are smart. And to think that you've gathered some hidden "meaning" to something that they authors never intended is arrogance, plain and simple.
You are entitled to your beliefs, but you are not entitled to approval or respect.
Several comments leave CS Lewis quotes, so I want to hit you with one of my favorite LeGuin quotes:
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
Great video! Slowly working my way through your back catalogue and enjoying every bit of it.
The most interesting stories are told when light and dark interact, intersect, intermingle. Pure darkness blinds you just as much as pure light: Either way, you can't read the words on a book if you can't see.
You can try squinting your eyes--but then again, that's gonna make you miss the point of the story.
"TP was my first zelda game" sure makes me feel old.
Yeah holy moley. I thought he was going to say Ocarina
Especially coming from a fully bearded man. Pretty sure I was in college when I played it, which doesn't feel like that long ago.
Yup, millennial here. Felt like a mummy suddenly.
@@Afreshio hahaha, same!
Exactly! And he played on the Wii! I mean, the GameCube version was so far superior... still... You have to start at some point.
This video has me crying. Not only because of the inherently “dark themes”, but because it took me almost 18 years to realize that these games have such deep meaning. I’ve loved them since I got my grubby little hands on ocarina of time for the N64 at age 6. And yet it has taken me how many years to understand why I loved that game so much.
I realize now that the reason I love this series is not just because the games are generally fun to play, but the fact that link has gone through so much, and keeps going. He is still alive. He didn’t give up.
When I was 4 I use to watch my 6yr old brother play it relentlessly. I recommended him this video, I hope his response is like yours.
Nah. It's so much deeper than not giving up. So many stories have "not giving up" as their main narrative. That's not what it is.
I'm not sure the message is truly about perseverance as much as it is the inevitability and cyclical nature of destiny.
@@st.dennie1149 arts meaning is subjective it means whatever you want it to mean as you shape your own reality. That’s what makes it good and what everything is about
@@michaellawrence1601 That's a very modernist view of art. Personally I believe all art has an objective meaning.
I always get happy when i hear about Animorphs. It was one of the first books that made me cry. When Tobias got stuck, the way it was written, it hit me hard. Such good books.
Man, what raw appreciation, crystalline criticism, and depths of empathy were poured into this; it’s astounding. What a way to properly give back to these eternally meaningful memories we took by humbling yourself, and (re)presenting them with composed yet profound passion. There is really so much respect toward these games, and a whole community who needs people to honour them eloquently. As an adult, I’ve never truly understood how to treasure and learn from these experiences, so I began to feel that maybe they were better off forgotte and started slumping into a prognosis not unlike that of Skullkid or Grog. But watching this, I felt my heart wrenched out from under my childhood, and lapsed into a fit of anamnesis. Thank you, I needed that cry.
"It's a game where those darker aspects framing the world make each act of kindness stand out more. Zelda's generosity, Link's inspiring bravery, every random townsperson's will to survive." You pretty much hit on head why I love and hate so much grim-dark fantasy. I fell in love with the genre when I first read Witcher books as teenager. They showed how bad humans could be, but they also showed how each individual could chip away at that darkness.
It's something that a LOT of grim-dark fantasy writers don't understand. You don't show violence for violence sake. You don't write rape scenes because you write grim-dark fantasy. No. The best way to showcase how your world is dark and how it changes is by contrasting those seemingly small acts of kindness.
It's discovering light that was hidden all along that inspires people 😊
You'd like Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. A seriously dark medieval fantasy horror novel that ends so beautifully it is the only novel that has ever made me cry
Berserk is still my absolute favorite example of that.
Spoilers if you haven't read
Guts finding so much to live for in the people he surrounds himself with to go so far as to give up on the revenge he had been living for all this time is incredible. Such a personal story with a beautiful message that unfortunately gets talked about way less than the fact a girl almost gets raped by a horse demon
@@pizzamozarella6346 was literally about to say berserk
One of my favorite videos of the year altogether. Tackling the importance of thematic maturity in media for kids was really inspiring, and the accompanying examples with the Zelda series really drives it home for me. I'm like you, as a kid, I didn't think much about any of that. I had a fun adventure and saved the day yippee! But it's one of those things where, in retrospect, these stories taught me about the beauty of the world as it is around me. Absolutely phenomenal
The ending monologue made me cry. Such a great interpretation of the Zelda series, thank you for writing this.
“Walking backwards into culture” is such a perfect phrase to describe retroactively understanding references in pop-culture. I relate to that feeling so hard!
Great video, I love your work! It’s always so thoughtful and interesting. Thanks for adding awesomeness to the world!
"I face god and walk backwards into culture" -jacob driller
I think whenever I'm feeling really bad I might watch the end bit of this again. That swing, that catharsis, is incredible.
Samwise Gamgee had the right of it all along. It's not the darkness that makes a story matter, but how that darkness is juxtaposed with hope and the reasons the heroes gather for fighting on. The darkness is there to highlight the good left in the world. And that's always worth fighting for
While I've had this video on my radar for quite some time, I only recently decided to watch it. All I can say is that my uncle passed recently and this video did an extremely good job at helping me through his celebration of life in so many ways that I would need to write an entire essay in order to articulate how. While I do not know what drove you to write such a beautiful video essay, it was one that was able to help me mourn and grieve and make coping with his passing just a little bit easier and I simply cannot thank you enough for that. I can only hope that this video can find other people - the right people - at just the right moment and I hope that if you're ever in a time of need that you can find something that helps comfort you the way that this did to me. Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Can't believe you almost made me cry at work with this one. Zelda games have always held a special place in my heart, Skyward Sword was the first real game I was exposed to growing up. The theme which you explain so well of always striving for the light no matter how dark it gets has been deeply meaningful to me.
Dude I was crying when he mentioned the Giving Tree.
Also Link’s Awakening.
Same boat as you! The place this series holds... Treasured beyond belief. Seeing Jacob weave it all together, put these feelings into words that resonate so deep, it's been a real treat. And so is sharing this, with all of you.
YES! So nice to know another "Twilight Princess was my first Zelda game" person!!!!!
It's funny how every Zelda is considered the worst one at first, then gets reclaimed. Twilight Princess isn't my favorite, parts of it are very basic, but the melancholy and unsettling atmosphere is awesome.
It was also my first
Hey! My people!
Les goooo!
Twilight Princess gang
Us Twilight Princess folk must band together.
“And often just a representation of how deeply a fan community has spiraled in on itself”
- Jacob Geller
(As he condensed the absolute mammoth of background info that is **the iceberg**, into the most precise, concise statement humanly possible, like a god damn word ninja)
Yeah, but ain't that the whole point
You're sinking so deep into fandom that you end up plumbing the depths of its insanity
“If you cried at the end, that means that it meant something” -My Father
A wise man, he is.
This video hasn't just made me weep, it's made me ugly cry. As a person who suffered most of their life, Zelda games were never just a game to escape into, they were a story to relate to. Majora's Mask most of all. I always felt like I've met with a terrible fate. Poor Young Link having to bear so much sadness and terror in his little life, yet being so brave to face the big evil and the end of times. The flow of time is always cruel. Please be strong.
Your last two sentences made me cry. I've never felt like someone has lived such a parallel life to mine before this moment. I'm sorry
These games were so special growing up.
Jacob playing the Forest Temple theme was meaningful. I spent a lot of time in that temple. Kind of got lost in it as a kid. So that theme was heard alot.
My younger self knew there was deeper meaning to these stories. And my older self 20 years later still ponders them.
As someone who has lived a life of nothing but privilege, I hope things get better.
I think the reason the ending was so impactful for me is because I often wonder about why I keep trying. When everything around you is full of darkness and despair it is so hard to see the point. The way you structured the video, talking about the darkest aspects in each game and ending with what the takeaway should be for each individual game was just wonderful. I don't think I've cried watching a video essay before
I like this. both for how it tackles the "darkest zelda" title that gets thrown around a lot, but how it acknowledges the darkness present in each game. good video
(missed opportunity to make a link joke during the sponsorship tho)
I feel a good parallel here is Lord of the Rings. I'm gonna echo Sam's speech in Two Towers: "It's like in the great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were... Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't... They were holding on to something... That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."
"Walking backwards into culture" is a phrase that will reside in my head from now on Fantastic video!
Weirdly enough as I transitioned from a child to a young adult, my mom got less and less okay with me playing dark games. I went from playing soul reaver as an 8 year old to having to beg my mom to let me play team fortress 2 in high school and getting a flat out no because it was rated M
The biggest takeaway i got from this video was the fact that animorphs is severly darker than I thought, as a kid I always saw it as a silly book of people becoming animals so i never read it
10/10 would watch as child soldiers be forced to commit warcrimes and develop crippling PTSD again.