Shadsie
Sage of Tales
I've been thinking lately about the nature of Evil in the Legend of Zelda series, monsters and ur-villains. I've been thinking about how much I like that there are a few "good" monsters roaming around, some shady people and the varying natures of Sources of evil, the greater villains.
I was just on a blog I watch where a book series I semi-regret I used to read gets dissected and discussed and some comparison was made between characters and things of actual history. I realized that from what I remember, I never found the villain to be very effective. He didn't scare me as much or make me feel the villainy as much as I have in other things, including this very "fairy tale style" videogame series that can *get away with* not having much villain-exposition because it's a game and you don't want to slog through a lot of novel-style back story to get to the sword slashing, puzzle solving and Hyrule-exploring, duh!
That's when I realized, The Legend of Zelda does have some effectual villains. Some within the series strike me as better than others, however.
If you ever take up writing / storytelling and you want to have a scary and/or angry-making "Big Bad" or ur-evil, you can go a variety of routes. You can have the power-hungry tyrant type (as a single person or as a group, actually) that wants to destroy Freedom. You can have the Knight Templar type who doesn't want to destroy Freedom for destruction's sake, but because they really think they are creating a greater good. You can have the great cosmic evil that may or may not be willfully "evil" but simply a destructive force that does not care or something from beyond that cannot be fully comprehended. You can have the "crazy" or "twisted in the head" villain who wants to hurt people because for them, pain is fun. You can have a comedic villain - usually a chacter who is drunk on their own over-the-topness and shows it.
Let's analyze some Zelda villains, shall we?
Cosmic / Uncomprehensible Horror:
In my opinion, this has been done both well and poorly in the Zelda series.
Where it has been done well - Majora's Mask. Majora is one of those "mysterious" villains that actually comes across as mysterious, and the buildup with it really does give the feel of a cosmic or unstoppable natural force that we are all afraid of, such as Death, Darkness, Lonliness - all of those rolled up into one. The fact that this mysterious and very chaotic evil hijacks a lonely child (Skullkid) makes it even more frightening, the implication being that this myserious...thing... is feeding upon the despair in someone's *heart,* that an innocent being is being used as a collaborator to and genretor of evil. There's no clear motive with Majora save destruction and ending for destruction and ending's sake. It is a Thing That Does Not Care. is a place where some would say this falls apart: The Reveal - when Link finally gets to fight Majora, it becomes this bizarre, goofy, gyrating *thing.* It's like one of the Nostalgia Critic's dissections of Stephen King TV miniseries - where the mysterious evil turns out to be a badly puppeteered giant spider or something equally narmy. Still, on the whole, Majora does play to the "mysterious evil that's scary because of its mystery" well.
Where this has been done poorly - The Imprisoned in Skyward Sword. I really think that Nintendo was trying to go for this "weird, incomprehnsible thing" with the character. It has a vauge resemblance to the Night Walker in Princess Mononoke. It has a maw full of knife-like teeth. I can't remember Link's dream in the beginning of the game precisely, but I remmeber it being fairly frightening because not much of the big black thing in it was shown and Link was consumed by the maw of teeth... (if I'm even remembering it right). However, instead of disappointing us at the end with the silly look of the being ala a King-based miniseries, this game does so right from the first apperance of the creature's three-times in action. I looks like a Muppet! Something in me thinks that some people at Nintendo found it genuinely scary - being this maw of teeth with legs, but it's honestly something that's more scary in *concept* than in actual look. The Imprisoned kind of reminds me of the title entities in "The Langoliers." The concept of relentlessly ravenous time-eating things that the human mind is not supposed to be able to grok is scary, but the hairy bowling balls with maws of teeth, given an actual visual, are ridiculous. The Imprisoned, I think, was meant to represent an all-consuming darkness, hence this walking all-mouth creature, but... it winds up looking downright cuddly becuase it's just a mouth with legs!
Tyrants that Do Something:
I think that Ganondorf is a good villain, particularly in Ocarina of Time. He is pretty much a cliched fairy tale muwahaha! villain, but he is actually given some frightening elements, and in OoT is much-evolved from his earlier, much more cliched roots. One of the things that makes a good villain for me is having them do things and be personally involved. Bomb a city and yawn doesn't do it for me, especially if the heroes of your story don't really know or care about it, either. Ganondorf, for all his high and mighty Ivory Tower (or in his case, Evil Tower) villainy, is shown to get his hands dirty and to personally mess with the people he's subjugating.
He sends his monsters to curse the Great Deku Tree to death, which makes things personal for Link. He awakens an ancient dragon and imprisons the Gorons to be fed to it. His taking of the Triforce of Power dooms Castle Town to a ReDead infested ruin.
Here's a case for his mothers, too. Twinrova brainwash one of the Sages and forces her to fight Link - and consequently, this forces Link to fight, injure and possibly kill (depending upon your intepretation of that scenario) one of his allies!
In Twilight Princess, the spirit of Ganondorf used a power hungry Twili royal as a vehicle for the direct causing of the usurping of a princess who cared about her people and the turning of Hyrule into a world of oblivious, but miserable and frightened shades. Zant did not run the coup alone, he had been given power by his "god," Ganondorf.
Ganondorf is actually more aloof than some very effective villains in fiction. I think I'm always going to be more afraid of that Russian mob boss in Firefly who personally loves to torture people who cross him, but for a videogame, and one that caters to all ages, Ganondorf is actually pretty good here.
The Spark of Humanity:
I think every truly "good" (well-written, well-done) villain has a little bit of "good" in them or at least banality. This reminds us that that we, ourselves, have our own darkness to guard against. If you see a villain who say, loves dogs as much as you do slaughter entire peoples, it is a to your core frightening thing because it means you share something "good" with someone who is very bad. If "pure evil" doesn't exist, it means that you are not immune from evil. Keep your guard up. It's also just plain realistic because no one wakes up one day and says "I feel like being evil today" unless it's something they're saying humorously or sarcastically. Even the most horrible of atrocities tend to start out well-intentioned in some way (even if it's twisted).
As this applies to Zelda: Ganondorf again. He particularly shows it in Wind Waker when he speaks about the hard life of his people in their hard land. I relate to it a lot because I grew up in a desert. I coveted the wind of a more temperate climate and got it by moving to the magical land of Pennsylvania. There actually seems to be some implication in his lines that the Hylians may have pushed and pressed the Gerudo to their desert, keeping them away from the easier climate.
In that game, he also has some great lines conceringing Hyrule's Triforce-Goddesses. He speaks of how they flooded the world rather than trying to save it. "Your gods have abandoned you!" Not everybody likes a "rage against the heavens" plot or characters that are quick to "blame God" for things, but in this case, it actually works/makes a point. Then again, I tend to think that Hyrule's Goddesses are more neutral than pure-benevolent or experimental and not always sure of what they're doing... in any case, it adds a little ambiguity to the role of the Hero as well as his stance as a villain and to their entire world set up.
Yet, at the same time, just because Ganondorf has some human reasons behind him and can make a nicely barbed point about the nature of their world, it doesn't make him a woobie-poo. He sends darkness to the Great Sea. He kidnaps children. During one point of the game, he tries to murder children. (He decides to spare Link and Zelda in the end parts of the game, but during that middle section when Link comes for Ayrll, Ganondorf is remorseless about telling Link to send a message to the dead that he is about to make the kid join). On top of that, he murdered the Sages, one being a childlike being and the other being possibly a last of her kind. So, he stays evil, and is all the scarier for it because he has a little spark of "good" or at least "understandable" that we can relate to.
.......
So, what do you think about he villains of this series and how they were done effectually or poorly?
I was just on a blog I watch where a book series I semi-regret I used to read gets dissected and discussed and some comparison was made between characters and things of actual history. I realized that from what I remember, I never found the villain to be very effective. He didn't scare me as much or make me feel the villainy as much as I have in other things, including this very "fairy tale style" videogame series that can *get away with* not having much villain-exposition because it's a game and you don't want to slog through a lot of novel-style back story to get to the sword slashing, puzzle solving and Hyrule-exploring, duh!
That's when I realized, The Legend of Zelda does have some effectual villains. Some within the series strike me as better than others, however.
If you ever take up writing / storytelling and you want to have a scary and/or angry-making "Big Bad" or ur-evil, you can go a variety of routes. You can have the power-hungry tyrant type (as a single person or as a group, actually) that wants to destroy Freedom. You can have the Knight Templar type who doesn't want to destroy Freedom for destruction's sake, but because they really think they are creating a greater good. You can have the great cosmic evil that may or may not be willfully "evil" but simply a destructive force that does not care or something from beyond that cannot be fully comprehended. You can have the "crazy" or "twisted in the head" villain who wants to hurt people because for them, pain is fun. You can have a comedic villain - usually a chacter who is drunk on their own over-the-topness and shows it.
Let's analyze some Zelda villains, shall we?
Cosmic / Uncomprehensible Horror:
In my opinion, this has been done both well and poorly in the Zelda series.
Where it has been done well - Majora's Mask. Majora is one of those "mysterious" villains that actually comes across as mysterious, and the buildup with it really does give the feel of a cosmic or unstoppable natural force that we are all afraid of, such as Death, Darkness, Lonliness - all of those rolled up into one. The fact that this mysterious and very chaotic evil hijacks a lonely child (Skullkid) makes it even more frightening, the implication being that this myserious...thing... is feeding upon the despair in someone's *heart,* that an innocent being is being used as a collaborator to and genretor of evil. There's no clear motive with Majora save destruction and ending for destruction and ending's sake. It is a Thing That Does Not Care. is a place where some would say this falls apart: The Reveal - when Link finally gets to fight Majora, it becomes this bizarre, goofy, gyrating *thing.* It's like one of the Nostalgia Critic's dissections of Stephen King TV miniseries - where the mysterious evil turns out to be a badly puppeteered giant spider or something equally narmy. Still, on the whole, Majora does play to the "mysterious evil that's scary because of its mystery" well.
Where this has been done poorly - The Imprisoned in Skyward Sword. I really think that Nintendo was trying to go for this "weird, incomprehnsible thing" with the character. It has a vauge resemblance to the Night Walker in Princess Mononoke. It has a maw full of knife-like teeth. I can't remember Link's dream in the beginning of the game precisely, but I remmeber it being fairly frightening because not much of the big black thing in it was shown and Link was consumed by the maw of teeth... (if I'm even remembering it right). However, instead of disappointing us at the end with the silly look of the being ala a King-based miniseries, this game does so right from the first apperance of the creature's three-times in action. I looks like a Muppet! Something in me thinks that some people at Nintendo found it genuinely scary - being this maw of teeth with legs, but it's honestly something that's more scary in *concept* than in actual look. The Imprisoned kind of reminds me of the title entities in "The Langoliers." The concept of relentlessly ravenous time-eating things that the human mind is not supposed to be able to grok is scary, but the hairy bowling balls with maws of teeth, given an actual visual, are ridiculous. The Imprisoned, I think, was meant to represent an all-consuming darkness, hence this walking all-mouth creature, but... it winds up looking downright cuddly becuase it's just a mouth with legs!
Tyrants that Do Something:
I think that Ganondorf is a good villain, particularly in Ocarina of Time. He is pretty much a cliched fairy tale muwahaha! villain, but he is actually given some frightening elements, and in OoT is much-evolved from his earlier, much more cliched roots. One of the things that makes a good villain for me is having them do things and be personally involved. Bomb a city and yawn doesn't do it for me, especially if the heroes of your story don't really know or care about it, either. Ganondorf, for all his high and mighty Ivory Tower (or in his case, Evil Tower) villainy, is shown to get his hands dirty and to personally mess with the people he's subjugating.
He sends his monsters to curse the Great Deku Tree to death, which makes things personal for Link. He awakens an ancient dragon and imprisons the Gorons to be fed to it. His taking of the Triforce of Power dooms Castle Town to a ReDead infested ruin.
Here's a case for his mothers, too. Twinrova brainwash one of the Sages and forces her to fight Link - and consequently, this forces Link to fight, injure and possibly kill (depending upon your intepretation of that scenario) one of his allies!
In Twilight Princess, the spirit of Ganondorf used a power hungry Twili royal as a vehicle for the direct causing of the usurping of a princess who cared about her people and the turning of Hyrule into a world of oblivious, but miserable and frightened shades. Zant did not run the coup alone, he had been given power by his "god," Ganondorf.
Ganondorf is actually more aloof than some very effective villains in fiction. I think I'm always going to be more afraid of that Russian mob boss in Firefly who personally loves to torture people who cross him, but for a videogame, and one that caters to all ages, Ganondorf is actually pretty good here.
The Spark of Humanity:
I think every truly "good" (well-written, well-done) villain has a little bit of "good" in them or at least banality. This reminds us that that we, ourselves, have our own darkness to guard against. If you see a villain who say, loves dogs as much as you do slaughter entire peoples, it is a to your core frightening thing because it means you share something "good" with someone who is very bad. If "pure evil" doesn't exist, it means that you are not immune from evil. Keep your guard up. It's also just plain realistic because no one wakes up one day and says "I feel like being evil today" unless it's something they're saying humorously or sarcastically. Even the most horrible of atrocities tend to start out well-intentioned in some way (even if it's twisted).
As this applies to Zelda: Ganondorf again. He particularly shows it in Wind Waker when he speaks about the hard life of his people in their hard land. I relate to it a lot because I grew up in a desert. I coveted the wind of a more temperate climate and got it by moving to the magical land of Pennsylvania. There actually seems to be some implication in his lines that the Hylians may have pushed and pressed the Gerudo to their desert, keeping them away from the easier climate.
In that game, he also has some great lines conceringing Hyrule's Triforce-Goddesses. He speaks of how they flooded the world rather than trying to save it. "Your gods have abandoned you!" Not everybody likes a "rage against the heavens" plot or characters that are quick to "blame God" for things, but in this case, it actually works/makes a point. Then again, I tend to think that Hyrule's Goddesses are more neutral than pure-benevolent or experimental and not always sure of what they're doing... in any case, it adds a little ambiguity to the role of the Hero as well as his stance as a villain and to their entire world set up.
Yet, at the same time, just because Ganondorf has some human reasons behind him and can make a nicely barbed point about the nature of their world, it doesn't make him a woobie-poo. He sends darkness to the Great Sea. He kidnaps children. During one point of the game, he tries to murder children. (He decides to spare Link and Zelda in the end parts of the game, but during that middle section when Link comes for Ayrll, Ganondorf is remorseless about telling Link to send a message to the dead that he is about to make the kid join). On top of that, he murdered the Sages, one being a childlike being and the other being possibly a last of her kind. So, he stays evil, and is all the scarier for it because he has a little spark of "good" or at least "understandable" that we can relate to.
.......
So, what do you think about he villains of this series and how they were done effectually or poorly?
