Samus Tropes in Zelda.... Should We Have More?

[HyruleHistory10]

Ok so this post is about Samus Tropes. For those of you who do not know what a Samus trope is I will explain it. A Samus Trope deals with a character in a story. The rules for a Samus Trope are 1) The person in question is decidedly Male (either by description, noises, appearence, etc.), 2) All the characters (including the person viewing whatever media device it is on) know it to be a male character, and lastly 3) The character in question at some point in the plot is revealed to be a female. Think about the original Metroid game for NES. Samus had no gender modifiers in the game so it was assumed Samus was a male. Beat the game with the best ending and TA-DA Samus is revealed to be a girl.

Now I bring this up because whether you know it or not, the Zelda franchise has a had a few instances of this.
1) The Iron knuckle from the Spirit Temple in OOT. You use the boss key and go into the room and a Knuckle is standing there. It is tall and powerful and makes a lot of male guteral sounds but when you defeat it TA-DA it is Nabooru a female character that was pressumed dead.
2) You run around the game followed and assisted by a character name Sheik. ALL references refer to Sheik as a boy, even Princess Ruto in the Water Temple says that a nice boy named Sheik rescued her from the ice plaguing Zora's Domain. Later at the end of the game Sheik drops his guard and reveals himself to be Princess Zelda.

These are the only ones that I know of in Zelda games, but, to me, they added a great deal of mystery and wonder into the game. They were both played well and there were no clues as to the original character in the costume leading to great character development for both the characters and enemies (in the case of Naboour and Twinrova).

Now here comes the question. Now pointing this out would it be a good idea to add some Samus Tropes into a future Zelda game? Do you think that is helps flesh out a great story or just a waste of space? Feel free to discuss your opinons.

(Oh and Sheik cannot be used again for a Samus Trope due to the fact that everyone now knows that he is a disguise of Zelda.)

 

[Random Person]

Any idea can be done right, especially a plot revealing twist like what you're describing. I'm a bit worried that Nintendo may not be able to make something like this up to par though. Lately their plot twists haven't been that shocking.

Spoiler

Many knew Ganondorf was behind Zant and many knew SS Impa was the old lady.

The whole point of plot twists is that they are shocking and unsuspecting. Nintendo isn't bad at delivering plot twists and can sometimes get you on the edge of your seat, they're just not fantastically good at them either when it comes to Zelda as of late. If they can do something as shocking as the Sheik = Zelda in the future, then I'd look forward to seeing this idea return.

This "Samus Trope" as you describe it would be a great idea in any situation, but how it is applied is key. Do it right, which Nintendo sometimes has a hard time doing, and I'd like to see more of it.

 

[Cfrock]

I think it could be used to provide a good twist in the story but it'd only have power if it was truly unexpected.

The reason why it worked so well with Samus was because it was the first time anything like that had happened in video games and there were next to no female leads so no one would even assume Samus was female.
For me personally, it didn't work with Sheik because from the very moment Sheik appeared, I believed it was a girl. Seriously, not one thing about Sheik seemed male to me and so I just thought it was a female character. When I saw characters like Ruto refer to Sheik as male I actually thought there had been a typo or a mistranslation or something. I didn't guess that Sheik would turn out to be Princess Zelda but I was convinced she was female right from the get-go.

So yeah, I think a Samus Trope could be used to good effect in future Zelda titles but it'd have to be done better than it was in Ocarina for it to really work in my opinion.

 

[MsNerrrrd]

I don't want to see them, like: "You know what would be a good idea? Another Samus-Trope right here! Maybe here as well, and over there too! Not forgetting about this one either!". No, I think that Sheik was just fine, even though it was quite the disappoitment that he was actually Zelda. And characters as such. I think that maybe there could be a few, in the entire series, but not like there are three different ones in every game and so on. Note, that this may sound confusing, if I happened to get the idea wrong.

 

[Seth]

Yes and no. As commented above, this can be a great plot point if used well. For instance I think it was used very well in OoT and it remains one of the series most notable plot twists to this day. That being said, a trope can become extremely cliched if used to much. I am not sure that Zelda should re-use this concept any time soon. There are a million other themes and ideas Zelda could utilize and explore that can create a strong and memorable narrative. I don't think the well is quite dry yet

I don't want to see them, like: "You know what would be a good idea? Another Samus-Trope right here! Maybe here as well, and over there too! Not forgetting about this one either!". No, I think that Sheik was just fine, even though it was quite the disappoitment that he was actually Zelda. And characters as such. I think that maybe there could be a few, in the entire series, but not like there are three different ones in every game and so on. Note, that this may sound confusing, if I happened to get the idea wrong.

I don't think he means to have it multiple times in a single title, rather just having the idea used again in future titles.