Daily Debate: Do You Think Zelda Will Be a Silent Protagonist in Echoes of Wisdom?
Posted on July 01 2024 by Nick Miller
One staple of the Zelda series is silent protagonists. Link’s dialogue is silent in every Zelda game (except for the CD-i titles that most people would rather forget), and fans have come to expect this from every iteration of the character. With Echoes of Wisdom, however, fans will now be playing as Princess Zelda for the first time in a mainline game. This is a character who traditionally has dialogue filling a role that doesn’t. So, will Nintendo finally break the Zelda series tradition and make the playable character speak, or will the silent protagonist live on?
As for me, I don’t think we will see Zelda’s dialogue in this game. This isn’t to say she doesn’t speak at all, but like Link, her speech will be muted to the player. The reason for this trope in the first place is for the sake of immersing players into the role, and I don’t think Nintendo is going to sacrifice that here. Having non-playable characters speak directly to the player means a lot more than watching two characters speak as a third-party observer.
Again, because the silent protagonist serves a purpose greater than just being a standard fixture of the series, I really don’t think we will see any dialogue coming out of the princess this time around.
Now tell us your thoughts. Do you think Zelda will be a silent protagonist in Echoes of Wisdom? Has the silent protagonist trope helped immerse you in a game before? Let us know in the comments below.
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders. His other favorite video games series include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, and Ratchet & Clank.
