The Philosophy of The Wind Waker

How would living your entire life on a peaceful island sound to you? Is it paradise or would you feel restricted, almost locked up in a cage. Hylian Dan of Zelda Universe has recently written an article entitled The Philosophy of The Wind Waker in which he looks at many of the themes of the game. As part one of a five part series, this article focuses on a lot of the individual characters that Link meets early on in his adventure.

We live in relation to islands and oceans. This is one of the key philosophical points of The Wind Waker. Islands represent comfort while oceans represent hardship. Many of the people who populate the Great Sea spend all their years within the confines of a single island, clinging to a personal little paradise. To them, the sea is too vast and dangerous and it is better and easier to remain at home.

Can life on Outset Island really be considered paradise? Link’s life on Outset Island is filled with simplicity, without much adventure and with only a few people to even interact with. Up until the start of the game he has lived his entire life on this island, never once exploring the world of the seas. Exactly what does Link do on a daily basis? The island is small, there is no room to even do much of anything in the outdoors, and the entire population of the island barely reaches the double digits. Hardly paradise and the comparisons to being locked up in prison seem to be very plausible.

One of Hylian Dan’s themes throughout the article is this idea of letting go of the past in order to reach a more exciting future. You need to leave what he considers paradise of living on an island, in exchange for living a life of adventure that opens endless opportunities. How I see it, leaving the island is a sign of breaking out of the chains that kept you there, and starting a search for a real paradise.

Part 2 of the article is scheduled for release next Sunday, March 14th.