Daily Debate: Is Link a Lefty, Righty, or Does it Even Matter?

Which hand does Link favor? For the longest time, Nintendo portrayed Link as a left-handed hero. This representation held steady from the first game way back in 1986 all the way to the 2006 release of Twilight Princess. While Link is right-handed in the Wii version of Twilight Princess, but it is port of the GameCube version of the same game, where the entire game world (including Link’s favored hand) is inverted from left to right. Official art for Twilight Princess also shows Link as a left-handed hero, so the Wii version bends but does not break the trend of left-handed Links.

However, 2011’s Skyward Sword was the first time Link was consistently portrayed as someone who is right-handed, both in the game itself and in official artwork. This change was undoubtedly made because of the focus on motion controls in the game. 2013’s A Link Between Worlds once again brought back the much more familiar left-handed Link. Even 2014’s Hyrule Warriors depicted Link as a lefty.

But with the release of more Zelda U footage, the Link shown in this 2015 release undeniably favors the right hand sword and bow alike, so now we must ask: Do Skyward Sword and Zelda U represent a shift in Nintendo’s depiction of Link from a left-handed hero to a right-handed hero, or are these changes anomalies in an otherwise consistent trend?

And what if Skyward Sword really is the lone exception to what has now been 30 years of otherwise left-handed Links? Could that mean the blond-haired character (who also does not sport Link’s traditional green tunic) in Zelda U‘s promotional material is not Link at all? Or could the Wii port of Twilight Princess have been the first step of Nintendo’s plan to transform Link into a right-handed protagonist? Let us know what you think in the comments. And feel free to let us know if you suffer from right privilege or not.