A Link to the Past Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past – Shintoism at Play

[Oni Cucco]

Hi zelda dungeon!

What is Shintoism? well "Shinto is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people."

some time ago I readed this article, I am a fan of this game . I post it because recently I saw someone comparing the transformation to a wolf in TP and the one to a bunny in Alttp, a wolf is a long way cooler than a bunny, isnt it? (?), well, this article contains an explication for this plus more information, that explains many things about how the ideas for the zelda world were constructed

If you are a real fan of Alttp or the Zelda series in general, this is a good reading

http://popularsymbolism.wordpress.c...-link-to-the-past-shintoism-at-play-spoilers/

 

[Shadsie]

Very, very interesting, and would make sense as Shinto influences general Japanese culture (even among non-religious Japanese) in probably much the same way that Western Christianity influences American culture (even though being a serious "Christian" is becoming increasingly a "bad" thing in America - many superficial cultural trappings of it remain). I was watching this thing on the History Channel the other day about Samurai and the legend of Miyamoto Musashi and the host talked about how "Shinto is at the very soul of what it means to be Japanese."

I have thought about writing about writing an article for Zelda Dungeon regarding Religion and real world religious symbols in the Zelda series - mostly Christian symbols (crosses in the early games) and alternate meanings for certain symbols (I've seen a lot of Christians and those influenced by Christianity in Western culture look to the Triforce as being represenative of the Holy Trinity - even if they are *aware* of it being an ancient Japanese clan-symbol). Also, the possible symbols of Islam that were present in Ocarina of Time that were cut out in later releases of the game. I saw someone here on the forum comparing parts of the Zelda games to Hinduism....

Does this mean that many symbols and ideas run across religions and/or that people of any faith can find something interesting to relate to in the Zelda games? (I was under the impression that Shigeru Miyamoto drew inspiration from many different stories he heard and read as a child and would perhaps have had a good, general knowledge of world cultures).

All I know is that if I were to ever write a Zelda and Religion article, I'd want to bone up on Shintoism.

 

[athenian200]

This is VERY interesting.

I always noticed the links between Zelda and Western mythology, particularly King Arthur and the Greek epics. Now I can see that it actually merged a lot of Shinto and European motifs. I think Miyamoto must have been fascinated by mythology in general. I always sensed that there was some kind of underlying symbolism that the game was based on... something about where those three virtues came from.

Ever since I got Okami, I started to realize how many Japanese mythology references might actually exist in games, and how interesting that mythology is. Now that I know about it, I may study it alongside Greek and Norse mythology.

It actually is amazing how much the feudal period of Japanese history resembles European medieval times. I do know that many games actually change Samurai into Knights, and the story still makes sense. I wonder if these kind of legends contain symbols that are universal to all people in the abstract, while being unique to a culture in the details.