Again, I do not see how there being multiple incarnations of Link means anything. The "reincarnation" in Zelda is not a plot point, hell it's not even confirmed to exist, it's a means to an end, that end being the excuse to have the same group of characters over and over and over, it's the same reason why Ganondorf somehow is capable of living for centuries on end. This is especially noticeable when you take into account, that across these incarnations, there is no evidence to even say that Link and Zelda will visually change at all, meaning canonically you have several characters all sprouting up, all looking the same, with the same genetics, with the same clothes, and with the same voice in many cases, and the same name, and even in some cases the backstory; it's frankly illogical to assume that there's nothing in the lore about what these incarnations can and can't be, the same goes for outside the lore.
Likewise, I find the argument, about avoiding staleness, well again, not logical, what exactly does boobs or a different skin tone add to Zelda? What stories, given Zeldas nature and family friendly approach can be written with these additions? What makes them so important that regular old Link can't just be there? From my perspective nothing. None of the possible stories I can think off, or the possible additions, in my opinion, add anything worth value to the series, that would outweigh the loss of the it's main character.
Finally, for the argument, that Link is suppose to be an avatar, well I agree, but I think it's highly disingenuous to assume that all avatars function the same way. Chell from portal is an avatar, Samus in many ways functioned as an avatar, as has Mario, Sonic, and many others, by being silent protagonists, which makes the only difference between them and Link, the ever fleeting in importance name option, which it should be reminded is not only an aspect that full blown characters had, but is also completely irrelevant, and is a whole lot different than anything in pokemon, as unlike any other series, the name Link has been so forced down everyones throat that no one anywhere can possibly even pretend that the character doesn't have a name anymore. Seriously, this is no longer a faceless avatar, it's a single character, that sometimes, not all the time, gets a slight redesign, mostly changing the saturation of some of the colors, or changing some equally small thing like which direction his hair is parted. To drop everything now after 30 years and make him customizable or a woman is a disservice to long time fans and the very foundation of the series, as well as the myriad of female options that would add to the gameplay and story structure, much much more than gender bending or race bending Link would.
It's silly, that some yall see things like this, and try to make the argument, that Link isn't a singular character:
All these are suppose to be completely different characters? Yeah right.
Like seriously, the biggest jumps in his design where these:
And not only did every single one, retain the exact same basics of being a young, blond, blue, eyed, Hylian boy in a green tunic and floppy hat, named Link, or that ever since then with the invention of things like OOX Link, and SS Link they've slowly started to bridge the gaps between each design further homogenizing Link as a whole, but the absolute cherry on top of it all is that this type of three way design split isn't even uncommon for other characters.
Making the only difference between Link and these other characters, just that technically, within the lore the incarnations of Link aren't always the exact same person, which:
A)Isn't even 100% true as Paper Mario is not the same Mario as say SM64 Mario, it is canonically a different universe, and when you consider the story of Super Mario Galaxy, and the unconfirmed theories about Peach being Rosalina's mom, the Mario universe is constantly repeating, making the actual number of Marios far greater than just the two we have here. Likewise, Boom Sonic is not the same Sonic as Generations Sonic, again a different universe.
Never is it shown how any incarnation of Link or Zelda ever die or are born, we've actually no evidence to say that the incarnations aren't the same people, for all we know, when they die their bodies could just metamorphosis into the next one. As unlikely as that is, there's no evidence to say it doesn't happen, as each game is so self contained and divorced from one another that literally anything can happen in-between them, as they're hardly meant to even connect. Which brings me to my third point.
C)Each Zelda game, even if it references a past game, exists for all intents and purposes, as it's own separate universe, even with the invention of the timeline, and lo and behold each main game contains the character Link, and the princess Zelda, and of course some ganondorf looking fellow, or just ganon himself, sound familiar.
It should, as it's the same **** Mario does as a series, the only difference here, is that instead of having the excuse of being all about the gameplay and thus not caring about why Bowser seems to attack weekly, Zelda just said
"uh...well crap, they're different characters. That works right?"
Hell no where else is this more relevant than in HH itself, AoL was the game that invented the whole Zelda's name is Zelda because of a some law, to sorta make sense as to why in a sequel the damsel we saved was more snow white, than before (and yes it's the same damsel as they didn't even bother to make her look different,) and yet, despite having set this in place, the very next move that Nintendo did was make a prequel...involving Princess Zelda. Then they made another prequel...involving Princess Zelda.
The point? Well now thirty years later, after they tried to put a rationale behind their titular character being named Zelda, said rationale is at the end of their official timeline, meaning there's a whole timeline and two whole timeline splits where the princess is named Zelda for no other reason than because of the fact that she's an iconic character and that's her name, which I don't know about the rest of yall, but to me that screams,
"These characters and their designs matter more to the series, than each individual games story, or any narrative that connects them."
Which shouldn't come as a shock to anyone considering how Nintendo treats their characters, and what they've said in the past about designing games gameplay first, characters second, and story last.
Finally finally finally, as a note to the driving force behind this nonsense, inclusiveness, which in all reality is more patronizing than accepting, I stand by what I've said, that I don't need Link to be like me, I don't need any characters to be like me, all I ask is that they're cool and fun to play as, and since I first started playing Zelda as a young kid, Link has been just that. I don't want a fem Link, I don't want a trans Link, I don't want a bisexual Link, I just want Link to be Link.
