Why the Conversation About Sheik’s Gender Should be About the Persona

The debate around Sheik’s “true” gender, which raged in the Zelda community for years, was allegedly put to an end with a proclamation from Bill Trinen of Nintendo America stating Sheik was a woman. In fact, our article on this announcement went down to be our most-viewed article yet. The debate around Sheik’s gender turned on whether or not Princess Zelda physically changed her body (including genitals) when becoming Sheik or if she simply wore an outfit to disguise herself. But in reality, this debate has centered on the wrong question, focusing on irrelevant particulars that fail to take into account who the persona Sheik really is and what he (that’s right HE) tells us about Princess Zelda, the Zelda franchise, and how conservative Nintendo can be.

The Debate

In Ocarina of Time, Child Link strives to gather the three Spiritual Stones at the Temple of Time to open the Sacred Realm and beat Ganondorf in a race to the Triforce. However, once Link succeeds in collecting the stones, Ganondorf appears on the scene in Princess Zelda’s pursuit. And once Link plays the Ocarina of Time to enter the Sacred Realm and claim the Triforce after Zelda flees, Link is sealed away for seven years in the Temple of Time, allowing him to mature enough to wield the Master Sword and vanquish the King of Thieves. Upon waking, Link emerges from his seal in the temple to be greeted by a mysterious figure clad in bandages and armor, who instructs Link on the next part of his journey. This mysterious person identifies himself as Sheik, one of the last remaining Sheikah people, the race Impa, servant to the royal family, hails from.

Link finds himself in Hyrule seven years later, a dark world under Ganondorf’s dominion, with Princess Zelda nowhere in sight. Throughout a quest to awaken the six remaining sages of Hyrule, Link continues to run into this mysterious Sheikah. With red eyes, golden hair, muscular arms, and deftness with a harp, Sheik continues to lend Link guidance and teach him songs he needs to know to gain access to the various temples of the land. Continually, Sheik offers enigmatic statements about life, the movement of time and Hyrule’s secrets. At one poignant moment, after Sheik teaches Link the “Bolero of Fire” and speaks on the matter of friendship, Link approaches Sheik to get a better look at this strangely familiar person, only to be obstructed by a wall of flames, as the mysterious Sheikah once again vanishes.

Near the close of the game, when Link has collected all the Sage Medallions and returns to the Temple of Time, Sheik reveals himself to actually be Princess Zelda in disguise. Notably, Sheik transforms into the princess with a magical flash of light in an instant. This is where the point of debate has traditionally focused: is Princess Zelda “physically” changed into a male Sheikah, or is she merely dressed as one? This question has been posed as, “what is Sheik’s gender” or “is Sheik male or female?”

You’re Asking the Wrong Question

But this question is a non-question. It’s clear in the original Ocarina of Time game that Sheik is meant to be perceived as a male Sheikah. Princess Ruto refers to Sheik as a “young man” and “him” in the game; Sheik, in the original Japanese version, uses the pronoun “boku,” which is far more often used by men in Japan than women; the official Ocarina of Time Official Nintendo Player’s Guide refers to Sheik as a “boy” (pg. 67); and in the official art of Sheik, it’s clear he is meant to be masculine in appearance.

Whether or not Sheik has a penis or breasts is next to impossible to determine, and in my opinion, has little to no relevance to this debate or the game itself. Official art shows Sheik with bandages wrapped around his chest, which suggests that he may be binding breasts. On the other hand, his body appears very different from Princess Zelda’s. If you compare them side by side, Sheik has broader shoulders, more muscular arms, and a waist to hip ratio that differs from Princess Zelda’s. As tumblr user 420Zelda points out, the differences between Zelda and Sheik’s bodies can’t be as easily dismissed with Trinen’s statement that Sheik is just Zelda in another outfit:

One might think that if Zelda can magically change her musculature and body type, it stands to reason it would be easier for her to eliminate her breasts magically than to bind them, but the bandages offer contradictory evidence – all in all, there’s no way to know for sure. There’s also the obvious fact Sheik continues to conceal his face, likely to prevent being recognized as Zelda, which seems to suggest Zelda either didn’t change her physical form or was limited in how much she could change.

Nonetheless, these questions still have no baring on Sheik’s gender. The reason is that the persona of Sheik that Zelda is disguising herself as is clearly meant to be male and perceived as male, regardless of how far Zelda went in pulling that off. Whether she bound her breasts or used magic to remove them, she was still posing as male, and thus the identity she inhabited, the persona she took on, was male. Sheik himself is but a persona Zelda dons for part of the game. We can debate about how distinct that persona is from Zelda (some evidence shows Sheik to be a character distinct from Zelda and other evidence indicates otherwise), but either way, this identity or persona is still male and was originally meant to be seen as such.

Furthermore, it makes sense that Zelda would pose as male. Ganondorf is on the lookout for a blonde princess, not a male Sheikah. Given that Zelda was under Impa’s care, posing as a blonde woman with a concealed face in Sheikah garb would draw Ganondorf’s suspicion more than posing as a man would. Not only that, but Zelda didn’t want to be recognized by anyone: she even concealed her identity from Link. As I mentioned before, Sheik strove to only speak with Link for brief moments and fled when Link got too curious. Zelda disguising herself as male serves to better conceal her identity. It throws Link (and the player) off the scent. We are much less likely to think this random Sheikah guy is Zelda, than we are to think a blonde woman in disguise is Zelda.

When Word of God is Wrong

But you might be thinking, Nintendo said Sheik is a woman – end of story. However, when we look more closely at Nintendo’s official statement about Sheik’s gender, we find there is even room for debate about what precisely the statement means:

“The definitive answer is that Sheik is a woman — simply Zelda in a different outfit.”

This assertion could be read in two ways: either that Sh

eik was never intended to be seen as male and was actually Zelda disguising herself as a Sheikah woman OR that underneath the male disguise, Zelda’s body was unchanged, making Sheik a “woman” still. Either way, the claim is dubious. Considering that a character in the game and the original player’s guide referred to Sheik as male, at the very least, Sheik disguise was meant to conceal Zelda’s gender. Further, the claim Zelda is merely “in another outfit” when posing as Sheik is contradicted by the fact Zelda must be hiding an impossible amount of musculature and shoulder breadth under her dainty dress if there is literally no physical change for her. There’s also the fact her eye color and skin tone change.

Of course, when Nintendo says Sheik is a woman (just like Zelda), they could mean that Sheik has breasts and a vagina, a claim supported by the binding bandages Sheik wears. But it seems like a non-issue to me. Whatever Sheik was packing under his armor, he was meant to be seen as a male Sheikah. That was Zelda’s goal with the disguise.

Obviously, Zelda herself is female, and there’s little to no reason to believe otherwise, but when people ask about Sheik’s gender, they must be treating Sheik as a different entity or else the question becomes meaningless. If Sheik’s genitals were changed, Zelda would be disguising her body to pass as male, but that wouldn’t change Zelda’s gender, just because she’s in a disguise for a short time. People hyper-focusing on Sheik’s private parts are missing the bigger point: Princess Zelda disguised herself, whether through magic or costume or both, as a man to evade capture and to fight Ganondorf behind the scenes, a fact muddled by Nintendo’s actions since Sheik’s appearance in Ocarina of Time.

The Feminization of Sheik

Not only has Nintendo stated that Sheik is “definitively” a woman, but they also have altered Sheik’s design as time goes on to obfuscate the truth behind Zelda’s disguise. In non-canon games subsequent to Ocarina of Time, Sheik has become increasingly feminized in terms of voice, body type and movements. You can compare Sheik’s design from Ocarina of Time to those of Super Smash Bros Melee and Brawl, as well as Hyrule Warriors, and see this trend in action:

When we look at Sheik’s designs over time, we can see a shift from the original 1998 Sheik who has practically no curves and a bulky, boxy frame, to the curvier, larger-thighed Sheik of Super Mash Bros. Melee, who has a more feminine appearance. But even so, Sheik in Melee still retains an amount of androgyny:

However, Sheik becomes much more feminine in Super Smash Bros Brawl, with long, braided hair (implying Zelda tucked her hair in when disguising herself as opposed to using magic to change her hair length), an even more obviously curvy body (emphasizing voluptuous legs), and feminine mannerisms:

But the most feminine iteration of Sheik is, by far, the most recent one in Hyrule Warriors, which one can’t reasonably deny – based on the voice acting, body type, costume and other features – is intended to be portrayed as female:

The glaring exception to this trend, is, of course, Super Smash Bros. Wii U, the installment that suddenly grants Sheik a testosterone boost, making him appear to be a cross between the original design from Ocarina of Time and the Twilight Princess revamp used in Brawl. This sudden shift to the masculine could partially be due to Sheik becoming a separate playable character from Zelda, and no longer a transformation in the game. Sheik becoming his own autonomous character could perhaps have made Nintendo developers feel they had more leeway to design a separate male Sheik.

Despite the exception of Wii U Sheik, the general trend is a more feminine Sheik, compounded by Nintendo’s latest insistence of Sheik’s womanhood. And yet, it’s pretty obvious from the language in Ocarina of Time and the original official art and design that Sheik was initially meant to be a male disguise. It seems to me that Nintendo has done an about-face to make Sheik less controversial. Zelda isn’t transforming into a man or cross dressing, she is only in a different outfit! Sheik is obviously a woman (despite the fact it goes against the original game’s canon and all obvious indicators). Nothing to see here! Move along now!

This is the actual issue people have been missing. Caught up in irrelevant particulars such as whether Sheik pees standing up or sitting down, gamers aren’t seeing the fact that Sheik is a male persona Zelda inhabits, whether through magic or more traditional artifice, and that, as years go by, Nintendo has been watering that down. The feminization of Sheik after the reveal he was Zelda all along is not a phenomenon restricted to the Zelda franchise, but one we see in other series that include cross dressing, such as Naota in Persona and Samus in Metroid, who, when they were first presented as male in their respective stories, bore androgynous or masculine designs, that became, illogically, more curvy and feminine after the reveal, even when they reverted to their original masculine or androgynous outfits.

But why would Nintendo make Sheik more feminine and later deny Sheik’s male gender? Because a demure princess like Zelda dressing as a guy rocks the boat more than Nintendo might be willing to risk. Why would the elegant, beautiful Princess Zelda masquerade as a man? With their official proclamation of Sheik’s womanhood and the increasingly feminine redesigns of Sheik, Nintendo is reneging on what they actually did with Zelda’s character in original Ocarina of Time game.

Why it Matters

To me, the erasure of Zelda’s gender swapping / crossdressing does Princess Zelda, Sheik and the story of Ocarina of Time an injustice. We have to ask: why does Nintendo continue to make Sheik increasingly feminine, to erase the fact that Zelda posed as male, that she presented in a very masculine form, and to release an official statement meant to eliminate the possibility she changed her body with magic to do so? Perhaps, like Nintendo’s possible about-face regarding ReDeads being corpses, the erasure of Sheik’s real gender is a ploy to be more family-friendly. Maybe, now that Zelda and Sheik are revealed to be one, Nintendo wants to side-step the idea of a princess not being dainty and feminine all the time, but even manly and gallant. It seems they forgot the telling words of a Gossip Stone they themselves created who once said, “They say that, contrary to her elegant image, Princess Zelda of Hyrule is, in fact, a tomboy!”

I personally hope that the more masculine Wii-U design is a sign of Nintendo moving away from being coy or downright in denial about Sheik’s gender / Zelda’s gender swapping. Maybe, as Sheik is appreciated more and more as a persona or character in his own right, the pressure Nintendo felt to give Sheik curves, bigger thighs, more slender arms, etc will fade.

One thing is for sure, nothing, from Nintendo’s latest contradictory statement about Sheik, to my article on the matter, will put this controversy to rest for good. If any gaming community is up for spirited debate on ambiguous or complicated points in canon, it’s the Zelda fandom. What I do hope to accomplish with this editorial is to push the community to move away from the simplistic and pointless bickering about Sheik’s equipment, to a more sophisticated and nuanced conversation about Sheik as a persona, whether distinct from or part of Zelda. I think he, and our favorite elegant (yet tomboyish) princess, deserve at least that much.

Fan Art Credit

Image 1: Dareedse

Image 4: 420Zelda