Breath of the Wild’s Zelda and Character Agency Part 1
Breath of the Wild’s Zelda does so much with so little. She’s integral to the plot and Link’s success, despite not having much agency at all. Sometimes a character simply trying to survive the constraints of their reality and do their best is more engaging than a stereotypical knightly hero.
Welcome to my first Narrative Thoughts! This series will explore some element of storytelling or characterization in a piece of media, often games, and what I liked or found interesting about it.
And what better way to start off a series than by talking about Zelda, agency, and what makes a compelling character! No one will possibly be upset by that, right?
Right!?
Ahem
I’ve spent a lot of time yelling about how Zelda should be the protagonist of her own story—Nintendo, I beg, one Legend of Zelda title with her as a playable character instead of set décor or rescue motive for Link.
Breath of the Wild flips the helpless damsel in distress trope on its head in ways I greatly enjoy, and I find myself at an interesting mental crossroads. On the one hand, I badly want Zelda to stop being a secondary character in her own narrative. On the other hand, it’s not an exaggeration to say this is my favorite Zelda now, and I haven’t even beat the game yet.
And no, wait, hold on, stop yelling! I promise, I’m not claiming this Zelda is the best Zelda. I haven’t played Windwaker, Skyward Sword, or Twilight Princess, all of which I’ve been told are cinematic and gaming epics with nuanced Zeldas, so please don’t come at me like Val what the f—I’m not ranking them! I’m not passing judgement on any of the other Zeldas! Breath of the Wild is just my current personal favorite!
BotW Zelda is also what an editor would call a “passive” character. She’s reactive, she doesn’t shape the plot but rather responds to situations. In fact, you don’t even see her in the present for most of the game, she’s just a disembodied voice. You only see her in memories. Link, as usual, is the “active” protagonist, the player character, the one that does sword fighty things and cooks a lot of durians for extra hearts to survive all the baddies!
Look, I love this Link. This Link, like this Zelda, is also probably my new favorite. But without Zelda’s choices, powers and how she uses them, there would be no story, no Link to be a knight and save the day, no scrap of hope left in the fight against Calamity Ganon. So why are supposedly passive or inactive characters considered bad or signs of weak writing more often than not?
I find myself examining what “passive” even means, and why writers (in the US at least) are trained to hate it so much. It all goes back to agency.
What is agency? In a Western archetypal story structure—something roughly hero’s journey shaped, with a broadly three act structure—agency is the choices your protagonist make, and how they define where the plot goes.
Characters with agency actively shift the flow of events. For example, Link fights the four Blight Ganons festering in each Divine Beast and frees the Champions’ souls, gets the Master Sword, and will likely go on to confront Calamity Ganon in an epic final battle. This is considered a good and engaging character, an active character with lots of agency.
A character with less agency is considered passive, reactive, and weak. If you submit a story featuring characters only responding to events, you’ll likely be told to rework it. Zelda is the princess destined to use her sacred power to seal away and defeat Calamity Ganon. But it doesn’t work. Her powers never manifest. She feels broken, flawed, and the king assigns Link as her knight against her wishes.
There are memories scattered throughout Hyrule for you to find and remember what happened 100 years ago when Zelda, Link, and the Champions failed to defeated Calamity Ganon. (Which might be a future post—you fail to save the day, now what?) They all give insight into key moments with Zelda and the Champions Revali, Urbosa, Daruk, and Mipha, and they tell Zelda’s story.
Depending on the order you uncover the memories, you discover she’s an eager scholar interested in ancient Hylian technology, and she’s determined to try and work around her lack of powers through science and understanding. You watch Zelda being scolded by her father, the king, for not trying to unlock her powers, for not being enough. You watch her fall in the rain, held by Link, dress muddy, as she sobs and calls herself a failure for letting the Champions die.
Vida Cruz wrote a profound article called We Are The Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist that argues “active” characters are often written with privilege, are typically cishet white men, typically able to change things because they’re allowed to change things. That’s the world they live in, that’s their privilege.
Zelda’s father expects her to fulfill a role she feels she isn’t capable of doing or even fully interested in, despite it absorbing her whole life. No, Zelda wants to dissect derelict Guardians and unlock Shrines, to unravel the mysteries of Hylian technology and use it for good.
It’s beautiful and refreshing to see her interests in ancient tech as much as her struggles, to let her voice her doubts, her fears, her suffering under the pressure of expectation and the stark reality of failing.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt like a failure, trapped by expectation. In how I’m expected to “overcome” my medical trauma, mental health struggles, and chronic pain. In how I’m expected to present as a biracial non-binary person, in where I fit, in where I can find work. I try to defiantly navigate what little I can control of my life and situation, even if that isn’t much. Zelda is the same, and I think that’s relatable, powerful, and necessary in stories. I think that’s why this Zelda means so much to me now.
All this being said, it still would be nice to have Zelda be a playable character in a Legend of Zelda title someday. It’s one thing to write one good narrative about a princess trying to survive and save what she can—but it’s another thing entirely to never allow women to be the protagonists of their own stories, to only allow them to be in a passive role.
Breath of the Wild certainly gives this incarnation of princess Zelda nuance. We’ll see how the ending goes—again, still haven’t beat it! I got through most of it and had so many thoughts. I’m close though! I’ve fought all the Divine Beasts, but want to save the finale for the week of Tears of the Kingdom’s release.
Which is to say there will be a part 2 to this, once I fully beat Breath of the Wild. A part 3 will likely also happen once Tears of the Kingdom comes out and I ADHD hyperfocus on it for several weeks.
Thank you for reading my first Narrative Thoughts! I hope you enjoyed it and it wasn’t too rambling. If you liked this post and would like to support more articles like it, consider becoming a patron or throwing me a tip on Ko-fi. You can also read Part 2 here~
