A Link Between Worlds
Apr. 27th, 2015 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynling* Beat the game
* In hero mode
* Got all the gear
* Got all the heart pieces
* Found all the Maiamai
* Solved all the puzzle rooms
I don't even know why I'm bragging; this is the fourth full time I've gone through A Link Between Worlds since it came out in November 2013. Playing this game is a weird compulsive organizational exercise for me in that my goal is to do everything as efficiently as possible. The computer doesn't keep track of your play time, but I think I've got it down to about ten hours.
I was talking to a friend about A Link Between Worlds the other day, and he agreed that there's a sort of "arranging your closet" quality to the game. Technically it's less linear and more open-world, but it's also very rational, almost as if there is a place where everything fits and it's your job to lay down all of the puzzle pieces in the right order. I think perhaps the two of us find this activity so satisfying because we've both played A Link to the Past countless times and know what the big picture is supposed to look like.
On my friend's recommendation, I downloaded Pushmo, and it has transported me to a state of rapture. It's like playing with Legos, except you don't have to clean up afterwards or risk stepping on jagged little bricks in the middle of the night. Also I'm in love with the little Pushmo creatures. They are so so so cute.
Anyway, during this playthrough of A Link Between Worlds, it occurred to me that it's really strange how Link and Zelda are able to create an entirely new Triforce for Lorule at the end of the game. This is what Lorule needs, as it's falling apart without the power of the Triforce to hold it together, but it's somewhat troubling that the Triforce can and does replicate itself.
I see the Triforce as a symbol of benevolent hegemony, and divinely-sanctioned benevolent hegemony at that. If someone has power and wisdom and courage, then they possess the means to transform their desire into reality by means of an almost mystical strength of will. It's more than a little Schopenhauerian, can you dig it.
Since we're talking about magic and not actual transformative political currents, however, it would make perfect sense to destroy the Triforce, which would simultaneously erase the right of one family to control it and eliminate the drive to war over possession of this right. The magical MacGuffin-ness of the Triforce also presages the possibility that it will fall into the "wrong" hands, as it did when Ganon took hold of it earlier in the history of this game's universe.
The people of Lorule, in destroying the Triforce, thus made a rational choice, thinking as they did that it was a representation of demiurgical forces and not a demiurge itself. This assumption turned out to be wrong, obviously. Lorule did not immediately fall into ruin, so its people were allowed to suffer for an unspecified amount of time (generations?) so as to become cognizant of their grave and hubristic mistake.
I don't think Link and Zelda necessarily ask the Hyrule Triforce for forgiveness regarding a decision that clearly wasn't theirs, but the player is also given to understand that, when Hilda allows Link and Zelda to return to Hyrule, she is paying penance for the actions of her ancestors. The Hyrule Triforce therefore grants Link and Zelda's wish, which is presumably that Lorule be saved, by giving Hilda the Triforce that she wanted.
This is kind of messed up. Essentially, the people of Lorule were making baby steps in the direction of democracy, and the Triforce was like, NOPE. In a world without the Triforce, you can have characters like Hilda, Ravio, and Yuga, all of whom break out of their assigned roles to be interesting people and do interesting things. Without the Triforce, however, the world that allows them to exist is not sustainable.
So if the "legend" is broken, then there's no future... for the franchise, I guess?
* In hero mode
* Got all the gear
* Got all the heart pieces
* Found all the Maiamai
* Solved all the puzzle rooms
I don't even know why I'm bragging; this is the fourth full time I've gone through A Link Between Worlds since it came out in November 2013. Playing this game is a weird compulsive organizational exercise for me in that my goal is to do everything as efficiently as possible. The computer doesn't keep track of your play time, but I think I've got it down to about ten hours.
I was talking to a friend about A Link Between Worlds the other day, and he agreed that there's a sort of "arranging your closet" quality to the game. Technically it's less linear and more open-world, but it's also very rational, almost as if there is a place where everything fits and it's your job to lay down all of the puzzle pieces in the right order. I think perhaps the two of us find this activity so satisfying because we've both played A Link to the Past countless times and know what the big picture is supposed to look like.
On my friend's recommendation, I downloaded Pushmo, and it has transported me to a state of rapture. It's like playing with Legos, except you don't have to clean up afterwards or risk stepping on jagged little bricks in the middle of the night. Also I'm in love with the little Pushmo creatures. They are so so so cute.
Anyway, during this playthrough of A Link Between Worlds, it occurred to me that it's really strange how Link and Zelda are able to create an entirely new Triforce for Lorule at the end of the game. This is what Lorule needs, as it's falling apart without the power of the Triforce to hold it together, but it's somewhat troubling that the Triforce can and does replicate itself.
I see the Triforce as a symbol of benevolent hegemony, and divinely-sanctioned benevolent hegemony at that. If someone has power and wisdom and courage, then they possess the means to transform their desire into reality by means of an almost mystical strength of will. It's more than a little Schopenhauerian, can you dig it.
Since we're talking about magic and not actual transformative political currents, however, it would make perfect sense to destroy the Triforce, which would simultaneously erase the right of one family to control it and eliminate the drive to war over possession of this right. The magical MacGuffin-ness of the Triforce also presages the possibility that it will fall into the "wrong" hands, as it did when Ganon took hold of it earlier in the history of this game's universe.
The people of Lorule, in destroying the Triforce, thus made a rational choice, thinking as they did that it was a representation of demiurgical forces and not a demiurge itself. This assumption turned out to be wrong, obviously. Lorule did not immediately fall into ruin, so its people were allowed to suffer for an unspecified amount of time (generations?) so as to become cognizant of their grave and hubristic mistake.
I don't think Link and Zelda necessarily ask the Hyrule Triforce for forgiveness regarding a decision that clearly wasn't theirs, but the player is also given to understand that, when Hilda allows Link and Zelda to return to Hyrule, she is paying penance for the actions of her ancestors. The Hyrule Triforce therefore grants Link and Zelda's wish, which is presumably that Lorule be saved, by giving Hilda the Triforce that she wanted.
This is kind of messed up. Essentially, the people of Lorule were making baby steps in the direction of democracy, and the Triforce was like, NOPE. In a world without the Triforce, you can have characters like Hilda, Ravio, and Yuga, all of whom break out of their assigned roles to be interesting people and do interesting things. Without the Triforce, however, the world that allows them to exist is not sustainable.
So if the "legend" is broken, then there's no future... for the franchise, I guess?
