♚

zeldadeservesabreak:

aksm:
People knock on Rhoam for being a bad dad cuz he’s distant and stern to little Zelda and say how Rauru is the goat (heh) for taking her in like his own daughter. Like Zelda had her real parental connection with Sonia and Rauru. But frankly that’s a little reductive.
Rauru literally descended from the heavens, married a priest, started a kingdom. Man didn’t really know much strife yet. There’s no looming threat of calamity or prophecy yet. Things are peaceful. Things are fine. Things are great. Zelda dropped in during this time, talking about a doom that’s going to happen tens of thousands of years in the future.
This sad, lost princess.
Of course any reasonable person would take her in and calm her and tell her she is fine and listen and support her.
Rhoam not being able to be this kind of figure for Zelda is tragic. Just read this poor man’s journal entries:
“It has been a year and three months since her mother passed. Perhaps she is held back by heartache too deep to heal. If the Ganon prophecy wasn’t looming over our heads, I would tell her to take her time… To wait until she is ready. But our situation is dire and leaves no room for weakness—even on behalf of my beloved daughter. My heart breaks for Zelda, but I must act as a king, not a father. I must order her to train relentlessly at the fountain.” Pg 4.
“In truth, I understand Zelda’s feelings. Painfully so. She lost her mother, her teacher, before she could learn from her. Ten pointless years of self-training, without so much as a book or note to help her find her way… Those in the castle talk behind her back. And I, her only family, scold her for her shortcomings. No wonder she wishes to hide away in her beloved relic research. I’d love nothing more than to console her… But I must stay strong. She MUST fulfill her duty, just as we all must. Even if she comes to despise me.” Pg 6.
“I have been told my Zelda went to the Spring of Wisdom… This will likely be her last chance. If she is unable to awaken her power at Lanayru, all hope is truly lost. If she comes back without success, then I shall speak kindly with her. Scolding is pointless now. I forced 10 years of training on her… and after all that, it seems her power will stubbornly awaken some other way. Perhaps I should encourage her to keep researching her beloved relics. They may just lead her to answers I can’t provide. For now, I sit anxiously, more a father than a king in this moment. I sit and await my daughter’s return.” Pg 7. (He fucking dies and never gives Zelda this bit of closure uuuugggghhhhhhh Zelda I’m so sorry Rhoam I’m so sorry)
It sucks because most people remember the cutscenes (duh it’s more immersive and important) and in the cutscenes of the first game Rhoam was mostly shown as being stern and mean to babygirl Zelda, who is closed fists explaining herself to him at the verge of tears. And in contrast everyone in the first royal family of hyrule in the second game treated her with such kindness and we can see how happy she was being there with them.
Rhoam was shackled by duty. By prophecy. By the looming calamity. And from the day he named his daughter ‘Zelda’ he shackled her as well.
And what does Zelda do with these shackles? She accepts them. She tolerates them. Because she loves her father and her kingdom and knows there’s a power dormant in her that can stop the calamity that she must do her best to unlock. She does this dutifully. She does all the training, she does everything that is required.
But it still doesn’t unlock. So she tries other ways. She isn’t just going after the 'relics’ because she’s scholarly and nerdy and wants to learn about them. She does it because she’s pragmatic. She knows her sacred sealing power isn’t present in her. She knows she might not be able to control it or even unlock it in time.
So she tries this alternative approach. The Divine Beasts, the guardians. Ancient tech that was used to prevent the calamity of their time. And she awakened the tech. And her father chose the champions for each divine beast. And they were all prepared. And it’s all thanks to Zelda.
And then… Fucking tragedy again. Ganon probably learned his lesson from the last time he was thwarted and immediately went for the tech, corrupting it and turning it against the new users. Against Zelda.
It’s never really stated how fast it all turned to shit when the tech betrayed them (or maybe I don’t remember) but every account points to it being almost overnight. The champions died. Rhoam died. And suddenly, suddenly Zelda unlocks her sealing magic.
I always always hate the literary trope of using tragedy to unlock a great power that could’ve actually stopped the tragedy from happening in the first place.
And it’s no different in BOTW. I hate that Zelda had to go through all this to unlock her powers.
And then what happens next?
She’s stuck in limbo (in an almost mocking parallel to Rauru in the next game with his imprisoning arm) holding Ganon back. For a hundred years.
This young woman had gone through so much only to be trapped with a calamity seeking to destroy Hyrule for a century.
Does she know her father died in the war? Does she know the champions died in battle? Would she know Link would survive in the Shrine of Resurrection? Would she know how long it would all take? The century she would have to wait?
I think she didn’t. I think it all happened too fast. I think ultimately, she decided a stalemate with ganon was an agreeable outcome. I think in her mind she probably thought she failed Hyrule. When the divine beasts turned she must have been distraught. Distraught might not even cover it tbh. But at least… At least when the kingdom was brought to it’s knees by the corrupted tech and was waiting for the final blow, she had the ability to ensure the final blow never came.
And oh boy I have a looot more to talk about regarding Tears of the Kingdom. But I do want to have a couple of more playthroughs of it to really formulate what I want to say.
It’s important to note that Zelda didn’t unlock her powers after the tragedy as some sort of fluke or cosmic joke on her behalf. No amount of studying or “trying harder” was going to do it. You can’t force it to happen.
So the reason her powers unlock is because of Link. Link is on the verge of death. The last person she truly loves. The one person who has stood by her side through all of her struggles and knows her more intimately than any other character in the game. The one who despite being mortally wounded is still trying to stand between the enemies and her.
Zelda unlocks her powers because she loves Link, and in that moment Link is in serious danger.
For the Divine Beasts, champions, and her father they were too far away. Their deaths happened so quickly and she was powerless to do anything about them. From what’s depicted in Age of Calamity and Breath of the Wild, Zelda and Link were on the way to the castle when the calamity struck. The champions all went off to pilot their beasts and got destroyed. Her father was in the castle itself. Link and Zelda were alone and they barely made it out in time.
As they flee Zelda breaks down and it’s Link who hugs her and comforts her while she cries.
Rhoam gets a lot of shit because despite the fact they had a calamity returning, if he had spent more time with his daughter, treated her interests with care, and not constantly sent her away to stand in cold ponds achieving nothing… all of this could’ve been prevented. If he had treated her with kindness instead of coldness, her love and bond with her friends would’ve been even greater and her powers unlocked faster.
And it’s also important to note that that prophecy? Servant of calamity ganon. Someone actively misleading them about the timing of the calamity to cause as much pain and suffering as possible. Maybe if Rhoam had mistrusted this prophet or looked into it more, all of this could’ve been avoided too.
So this isn’t a story about how she wasn’t able to unlock her powers before the calamity happens, it’s about what happens when you’re so focused on the impending calamity that you ignore basic empathy and kindness towards others.
This is why people are much more positive about Rauru. He has his own issues dealing with Ganon, but he doesn’t force the pressures of his time on Zelda… even though she WANTS to help. He actively encourages her to seek wisdom and study to learn how to get back to her time instead of fretting about the daily lives of their kingdom.
And this… pays off. Even though it costs Rauru his life, Zelda IS able to use her knowledge and wisdom to concoct a plan. A buckwild absolutely insane plan to be sure… but one that is founded upon her wisdom and studies and which ultimately…works!
Her stalemate against Calamity Ganon is just that. A stalemate. Neither can win. And the stalemate with Rauru and Ganon is the same thing. Neither can win.
But Zelda knows through her experiences when Ganon will return. She knows Link is safe on a sky island. She gets the Master Sword and knows what the sacred stones do to someone who swallows them. She enacts a plan to break the stalemate, and it works!
And it only works because Rauru let her live her life while she stayed with them by encouraging her studies and forming a connection and a bond with her.
Rauru did what Rhoam did not. One resulted in success while the other lead to tragedy.