Faith in the Zelda Games

[Shadsie]

What I meant by "destiny" is how Link is always the "destined Hero" - how he always winds up being the Hero chosen by the Gods. I suppose he *could* choose not to be, but then, the game would be boring and evil would cover his land.

The seeing through masks thing sounds cool. You'd have Link with the Stone Mask ala MM, come up to the guy and the guy's like... "I can see you there, kid. The silly headgear doesn't fool me."

As I've said before, skepticism of the "Flat Earth Athiest" trope can be done very well and very respectfully. I already spoke a bit about a character in annother fantasy series (books, anime) "The Tweleve Kingdoms." Rakkashun is a *very* intelligent and studious character who observes and speaks very plainly about human nature. It may seem strange to us that he professes no faith in the gods of his world when there's magic and immortals all around him, and when he himself (like all people in his world) was born from a cocoon on a tree after his parents tied a ribbon to a branch and prayed for him... but... since magic and baby-trees and all that are just so utterly *common* in his world, his skepticism of higher things (gods) still makes sense for him. He points out that people in his world suffer and that people still do what they want, it sure doesn't seem like the gods interfere...

I played with skepticism a little in one of my fanfics. I believe I posted links to "The Great Desert" here in the Fan Works. It's an original-era Hyrule, one with a Western-resembling setting... new Link, new Zelda. Most people in the world of the story don't believe in magic and think that their ancestors were just telling fairy-tales. They don't believe in fairies, either. I even extended the skepticim to Link, himself. For his part, he does still believe in the Goddesses, and prays to Farore, but even that is stated to be somewhat rare in his day and age. Link, of course, finds out that magic is real (because it really be an LoZ story if it wasn't), but he does find out interesting things about the Goddesses, such as "They aren't as all-powerful as they're thought to be." I had fun with that fic, I really did. I don't know if my co-idea-person had as much fun as I did, but I had a lot of fun. Playing a little with skepticism was one of the fun-bits for me.

 

[hsb39]

Shadsie, I really have to read some of your fanfic, once I get back from my European adventures.

 

[lonely_moon]

The Hylian religion is a major theme, if not THE major theme in the Legend of Zelda series, and I love that. The main conflict in the games occurs because of the Triforce, the symbol of the religion and the symbol of the goddess' power. Link embarks on his quests to keep the Triforce in good hands.

The religion is also fairly well thought out. We have our creation story, our story of original sin (think the Civil War that took place over the Triforce), the "messiah" figure (Link), the moral of temptation and lust for power (Civil War, again, as well as Ganondorf), major gods and minor gods (major being Din, Nayru and Farore, minor being Jabu-Jabu, Zephos and Cyclos, etc.). I'm not sure if this is just the series retconning itself, but the minor gods seem to come and go. Perhaps they are not immortal, and when they die, a new minor god takes its place?

It is a bit strange that there seems to be only one religion, but hey, it is a game after all. Delving into my fan theory here, I had the thought that the Gerudos were skeptics, and that as a result of this, they were cursed to only have one man born every 100 years. They did commit the sin of worshiping a "false" god (the Goddess of the Sand, whose temple is now the Spirit Temple), so the goddesses probably punished them for that. Or the Goddess of the Sand could be their version of Din, I don't know.

 

[Shadsie]

It would seem to me that various races put more attention upon their physical gods (their minor patron dieties) than upon the Great Goddessess. The Goddesses always struck me as kind of "Deist" in nature - they created the world, set it in motion, but don't really interfere much in the life of the world. That would be what the minor gods are for - they're the direct protectors and providers for the various races. The Great Deku Tree, for instance, guides and takes care of the Kokiki and the Koroks... Valoo watches over the Rito and grants their youth their coming-of-age rites.

I do not know if the minor patrons ever die naturally, but it would seem that they are *capable* of dying. The Great Deku tree died in Ocarina of Time. He was reborn as a sprout - almost like a plant verson of a phoenix. In Wind Waker, the Koroks are very concerned that he might die if they don't get their new forest planted and thriving on the islands. In Ocarina of Time again, after Link wakes up, at the Zora's Domain, Jabu-Jabu is missing - I think it is implied that he has been killed by Ganondorf. So, yeah, the minor dieties are certainly capable of dying - whether they ever do "of natural causes" remains to be seen.


As for my fanfic (which I really ought to stop advertising), my co-creator and I came up with this weird, largely neutral spiritual power that the Goddessess managed to partially tap into. (We needed some way to explain magic). In any case, Link finds out that he's part of a game of the Goddesses and isn't very happy about it. The general skepticism of the world is all laid out in the first chapter, but the confrontation with the Goddesses and their true nature isn't revealed until the chapter tweleve. Again, this isn't canon, just a bit of how I dealt with skepticism and a "partial de-throning" of the Goddesses in a fan fiction story.