[Disclaimer en español: el siguiente texto está en inglés porque mi cabeza lo armó (como siempre) en spanglish, pero más glish que span (?). Sin embargo, esto no irá en detrimento de los posts en español para las dos personas que siguen mi blog en lengua nativa. A menos que sí. Bienvenidos a Laika's Last Howl, o Laikas Siste Hylet]
There are countless hours' worth of content on YouTube describing the Legend of Zelda, its many subtexts, describing and reviewing games, characters, stories and whatnot. So what can this dude on a blog add to the discussion? Well, I'll tell you what: in an era where climate change stopped being a nerdy concept and now is a house-hold name, and where Greta Thunberg, the IPCC and the Paris Agreements make headlines, the 3D games of The Legend of Zelda portray a beautifully executed ode to environmental conservationism. Something few other media franchises (let alone videogames) have done; and something I haven't seen or read on the web, so here I'll discuss how Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild manage to talk about environmental conflicts and conservationism along the rest of their plots and gameplay mechanics.
(And where's Skyward Sword? I never owned a Wii so I didn't play it. So yeah...)
World building
Let's go back to a time not so long ago but before Nintendo Switch: the camera goes black and slowly pans over a grassfield, some ducks in a lake and a fox yawning. It was the E3 trailer for the (I can't stress how) superbly hyped Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. One of the most anticipated games of the decade, the most highly praised game of 2017, a game that people have made 3 hours long videos about. Yeah, that game. The first thing we saw about it was grass and ducks.
And it's not an exception among 3D Zelda games. Through one of its first cinematics, Ocarina of Time follows Navi through Kokiri Forest to showcase the place on all its beauty. It's a place of houses made of trunks, ingenuity and magic. The game doesn't stop there, Ocarina of Time goes to great lengths in order to immerse you in this world: every single step on grass, rock, dust and pavement, every water movement, every splash, every sandstorm, every raindrop, every bark and gallop has its own distinct sound. People has played this thing blindfolded because of how reliable the sound design is, dammit.
Twilight Princess does it too. It's a massive world you can freely explore and discover new secrets, new paths, new holes and small caves. They (usually) don't have grandiose or quest-related rewards, like the stars in odd places in Super Mario where you have to explore; in Twilight, you want to explore, you want to try that new item in that path and see what's at the other side. The world invites you to explore. And even if the reward at the end is 100 rupees, the exploration was fun.
Breath of the Wild took this idea to new extremes. I won't repeat what many have already said countless times: Hyrule is massive, everything but the first Great Plateau and the Final Boss are optional, there are 900 koroks. Breath of the Wild is this huge world with ducks and foxes and horses and mythological creatures, and the game invites you to explore it with a simple "what is that at the distance?".
Why is this important? Why is Zelda any different from every other franchise? Silent Hill also walked the extra mile to create an unsettling world where you were supposed to feel uncomfortable and uneasy, even Call of Duty has 4K 60 FPS snow and water effects to transport you to eastern Russia. However, 3D Zeldas create these worlds not because they necessarily want you to feel a particular emotion, but to make you feel part of a living and functioning world at your disposal, to wander around and see what's next. This world is a key component of the narrative of the game; these places are the places you're protecting from whatever bad guy threatens that current game. When Calamity Ganon threatens Hyrule, it threatens those ducks and foxes and horses and mythological creatures.
Yes. Climate change is a threat to humanity as well, but it's also a huge threat to the world itself. To the ducks and foxes and horses and mythological creatures in our real world. It's a great analogy: the same Hyrule that is threatened by evil and Link wants to protect because he's part of it, is the same Earth that is threatened by environmental issues and many people around the world want to protect because they are part of it.
People. Yeah, let's talk about people as well.
People in harmony. World in harmony.
Zelda is by no means the flagship of fantasy characters. You have elfs, water people and fire people. But they aren't just thrown into the fray of the conflict of the game, they're having their own normal lives until shit hits the fan.
Gorons live in the mountains. Have their idols carved on stone, work in mining, are famous for the smithing abilities, and so on. Everything they do is connected to this mountain, which is not only a place: but a place you can explore and see in their everyday life. You see gorons living in harmony with their own environment, and when you're tasked with helping them because something or someone threatens them, they're giving you the responsibility of restoring their harmony.
The desert is usually a cornered and distant place in Hyrule, only accessible through a tough hike. So it makes sense that Gerudo culture is centred around isolation and a strong sense of community. The desert is harsh, its temperatures and sandstorms can kill you if you're unprepared. They know it and they respect it. That's the Gerudo harmony as well.
And then you have "normal" Hylian people living their lives, which you may initially think as the average uninteresting guys. It's the complete opposite. In our real-world, when thinking about the environment and its inhabitants, people may think in this random tribe lost in the Amazon, or these fishermen on the Pacific islands. But it's also you and me living in cities. Urban environments are also that: environments. With its own sets of rules, roads, enter and exit points, sewage, local flora and fauna and so on. And they also have (or seek) their harmony.
Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Market is depicted as this place sprawling with life, stores, music and street markets. At night, street dogs wander around doing good bois things. Twilight Princess' Kakariko Village lies in a pathway towards the mighty Death Mountain, functioning as an important trade point where Gorons are a common sight--when both cultures live in harmony. Wind Waker's Outset Island is this small fishing community where people live their normal lives, unaware of problems in the larger world, and rarely receiving news and wares by travelling merchants.
Twilight Princess' opening sequence is infamous by how tedious it is. But by doing that, it helps putting Link (you) as the character of this Hyrule. It's not a sequence of a dude gathering goats or fishing, it's you the one gathering goats, fishing to find a lost cat or teaching children how to use a slingshot. You are the one who's receiving the big news about going to the mighty Hyrule Castle tomorrow delivering a package, because after this simple life you experienced, you are the one excited by these news.
You may think "duh, of course Zelda portrays people like this, it's a medieval fantasy setting". But not so much. Dragon Age saga focuses on the fantasy and social differences between the wealthy capital and the fragile outskirts. Even Harry Potter (I read books 2, 3 and 4 an ass-long time ago, but still remember some) that details the smell and the feeling of each exotic class Harry has, doesn't go into each interaction Gryffindor and Ravenclaw share. Whereas Harry Potter, Dragon Age, Super Mario and other fantasy franchises will explain you the amazing parts or the ones that advance the plot, Zelda will also spend time (sometimes forcing you, like Twilight's tutorial) in the mundane, in that everyday life. By doing that they (1) help building this believable world, and (2) makes you part of the harmony each race and each settlement have with the rest of Hyrule.
Life out of balance
Terrible Writing Advice did a good video portraying the clichés of the hippie naturalists vs the greedy technocrats that don't care about the environment. It's pretty easy to fall into that territory, specially that Zelda is now dealing with technology and the dangers of its misuse. I mean, just look at Avatar, Star Wars and many other "evil technophile empire" in media. In a nutshell, that video discusses how lame the "we are the good guys because we fight for nature" and "we are the bad guys and we love cities because we love it" are because of its overuse and usually poor handling.
Let's go back to our world for a bit. Climate change is so dangerous because it disrupts the very delicate balance in the ecosphere, creating a domino effect that eventually harms our very own survival. It's not a direct threat to us as the rise of CO2 doesn't alarm us as individuals or societies, but it affects the foundation of the ecosystems we live in and rely on.
If you're the religious type, mankind and life on Earth are miracles by powers beyond, and we're meant to respectfully use this godly gift because every misuse we do will be redirected towards us; karma, if you will. If you're the scientific type, we're the result of very specific chemical reactions and an ungodly amount of time where evolution, tectonics and more created life as we know it. Grab a periodic table, grab a divine book, they both reach the same conclusion: mankind is Earth and Earth is mankind. You damage one, you damage the other because they function as one entity. Carl Sagan said it best.
I'm by no means an expert on asian cosmovision, let alone shintoism or what Shigeru Miyamoto [Zelda's creator] and Eiji Aonuma [producer of all Zeldas mentioned on this post] personally believe in. But I know that the idea of harmony and coexistence are heavily present in japanese cosmovision. Miyamoto himself has talked about Shinto influence on his work when saying that the Shinto shrines' arcs and the fox statue in a shrine in Kyoto inspired him to create Fox McCloud and the Star Fox series. Anyway. In Shinto, it is expected to follow a harae ("pure") behaviour, whereas it is also expected to avoid "kegare" ("impurity"). Kegare is also a temporary state fixed by reaching a harae, which is supposed to be humans' natural state. In a very layman/reductionist sense, climate change is a kegare episode that shall be fixed as people pursue a harae.
And now back to Zelda. With its job at putting Link in this harmonious functioning Hyrule, we came to understand the harae state of its world. And if everything went to hell already, the plot is very clear in telling us that this is not how it's supposed to look like. But where Bowser kidnaps Peach and that disrupts Mushroom Kingdom, Ganondorf attacks Hyrule directly and THAT creates issues with its people.
In Ocarina, he puts a parasite into the Deku Tree that eventually kills him, and by his death, the harmony of the Kokiri Forest is disrupted and monsters can walk freely because the holy protection is gone. He freezes Zora's Domain, which is Hyrule's main source of water, and that escalates in draining Lake Hylia at the other side of Hyrule.
In Twilight, the joint effort of Zant and Ganondorf puts pressure over the Twilight Realm, which then manifests on Hyrule. Wind Waker's premise is Ganondorf being such a threat to Hyrule, that the goddesses themselves decided to flood everything in a desperate attempt to eradicate the kegare. As a result, Hyrule turned into the Great Sea that a new Link explores in the events of that game.
The wrath of Calamity Ganon threats to flood the Reservoir Lake in Breath of the Wild, and if that happens the entirety of Zora's Domain (and its people) and much of west Hyrule will be flooded. And so we can continue mentioning examples. The Empire in Star Wars enslaves people and will destroy worlds that opposes them. Team Rocket in Pokémon wants to assault Silph Co. because of their exploitable research. But Ganondorf attacks the balance of Hyrule, it pushes a kegare state that, if left unattended, will consume the entire world. Just like...you guessed it, climate change.
Like harae is the natural state where everything will eventually tend towards to, Hyrule will slowly tend to fix itself. After the great calamity set in motion the events of Breath of the Wild, 100 years later we see foxes yawning peacefully next to the ruins of a once burned village. The ancient weapons that destroyed the land now sit inactive and cranes and pigeons eat seeds next to them. Earth will have a similar result. After the Black Plague killed 25% of the world population in the 1300s, we're over seven billion now. However, time is the key component here. I doubt people suffering the great calamity were optimistic about their future in 100 years, or an unknown farmer in nowadays Germany thinking "yeah, my country will do just fine 700 years from now". Harae will come, but it's encouraged to push it in order to leave the karage state.
Termina
Termina deserves a special place not only because Majora's Mask is my favourite videogame, but how clear it is with the environmental destruction. Although the end of the world is very clear because of have you seen that moon!?, Termina's environment is also key on its path to ruin.
Skull Kid poisoned the rivers and Woodfall was immediately at risk, we quickly understand why: humans need water, crops need water, Woodfall's inhabitants need water, life as we understand it requires water. You poison it, you pose a direct threat to our survival, theirs as well.
It is stated that Termina's beaches should be tropical paradises and full of people around the time of the game events. But it's desolated due to murky water. Zelda is obviously no chemistry class, but oceans being "odd" is a major threat in our world. The pH changing to a more acidic one has wreaked havoc on the Great Coral Reef, warmer ocean currents carry less oxygen and that affects all the trophic network above, particles of plastics are already measurable in our bodies because of how the ocean interconnects to the processes in land, and so on. "Murky" is an euphemism to whatever chemical change Skull Kid did that will snowball into awful news for Termina's Zoras.
Even though we're living a dangerous global warming, a global cooling would be equally bad. The temperature drop affects blossoming (which in return affects the ecosystem above), an unthawed soil is sterile for plants to grow, and let's not even talk about hypothermia, as deadly as heatwaves. And that's exactly what happened in Snowhead: an eternal winter. If you're into that, play Frostpunk :D.
Yes. Skull Kid directly affected many people in the game too: it blocked Romani Ranch's entrance, it created the monster that killed Darmani, it turned Kafei into a kid days before his wedding, it caused Lulu's depression and indirectly killed Mikau, and attempts to kill everyone with have you seen than moon!?. But even if we take that from the equation, many characters in Termina will die in the upcoming weeks or months because of what he did to Termina's ecosystem and balance.
Restoring balance is saving the world
So you start taking action. But it's not about gaining power ups to storm the castle, and I think Breath of the Wild and its open-world mentality illustrates it well. You can attempt to destroy Calamity Ganon right away, but that won't give peace to your friends whose souls are still trapped in the divine beasts, won't give back the treasure the Gerudo lost against a rival clan, won't make Yunobo strong to take on the duty of being a Goron champion, and so on. As you're invested in this world, you're invested in helping everyone, which in return will also help you in your final battle (I mean, just look at this motherfreaking cutscene) and finally return the harmony Calamity Ganon destroyed 100 years prior to the game.
Look at Wind Waker: the harmony in Outset Island is broken at the very beginning of the game when your sister is kidnapped. That alone is enough motivation for Link to begin his quest, but in doing so he leaves his grandma alone. She, old, weak and saddened by the sudden departure of his two loved grandchildren, becomes sick. After Link heals her, she's rejoiced and promises she'll be strong and will await for the grandchildren's return. I don't remember right now if gameplay-wise healing your grandma is a requirement for advancing, but plot-wise this is a tangent in your quest for getting the pearls, the Triforce shards and reaching Ganon. However, it's an absolutely crucial step in order to restore balance. Where other games may make you feel as a simple sidequest to go back home (Red never needs to go back to Pallet Town in Pokémon), Wind Waker puts it at the top of your priorities because your family, your very own harmony, is in peril. I never even noticed I "had" to help grandma when playing the game. I felt it was a crucial part of my adventure because what kind of heartless monster wouldn't do it?
The same happens many times in Majora's Mask. Getting Epona is only needed to jump fences (which are only placed gameplay-wise to lock you out certain areas). But there's an entire plot of two sisters accepting the end, a dude and his chickens, two ruffians and many cows and bottles of milk happening around. Is it necessary to do that to save Termina? Is there any plot connection between Romani Ranch and the quest Link must do to stop the moon? No. However, once Link restored harmony in Romani Ranch, the cows are saved so the sisters can deliver milk right on time for the carnival, the chicken dude can see its little birds turned into big roosters, the ruffians were stopped and the road between Ranch and Town open again. Everything is as it was supposed to be.
Is it necessary to save the Great Coral Reef? To stop pandas and ararinha azul from going extinct? To create an international law that promotes and enforces renewable energy instead of coal? To actively clean the plastic patches in the Pacific? To empower women and children in rural communities to lead climatic adaptation within their own realities? Is it necessary to do all that if we just want to cut our CO2, CH4 and NOx emissions? Probably not. Yet we still have to do all that (and a lot more) if we want to leave behind this kegare state and go back to the natural harae.
Of course, we don't have a Link, a Zelda, a Midna or an Impa. We neither have any part of the Triforce nor Divine Beast. But there are millions of humans rallying every friday, being interviewed in international TV, reintroducing species extinct in the wild, cutting down on their meat consumption, reading about international or local acts, joining NGOs, neutering their pets, reading about a local plant they found interesting and making ecobricks. This is a quick shoutout to all of you.
In conclusion
Yeah, I can't believe either that I made a 3,500 words post about a videogame. I think it's even among my longest posts ever here. But hey, thanks for sticking by.
It shocked me when I saw Breath of the Wild's trailer, because where everyone put flashy colours, loud music and showcasing technological improvements, we had grass and a cute fox. One of my fondest memories in Zelda games is aimlessly exploring Zora's River and the Great Sea, because I felt there was an adventure just by being part of this world and doing my tiny part to protect it, just like it's an adventure to be on this world and doing your tiny bit to protect it. I started thinking about the whole thing and, alongside my own daytime job and my interest in environmental communication, I made some connections about what I'm "supposed to feel" when helping all these people on these games.
Also Cuccos. Chickens portrayed as soulless murderers is the most accurate "running away from the farm" simulator.
Saludos a Daruk.
