Skyward Spousal Abuse

Over the last two weeks, I picked up The Legend of Zelda; Skyward Sword for my Wii. I'm realizing by stating I picked it up "over the last two weeks" I can allow myself to sound like a rather normal functioning member of society. This certainly becomes much harder for me to do if I were to admit off the bat that I know that I just so happened to pick the game up on November 19th, because that just so happens to be the day it came out and because I just so happen to be a massive nerd.

In my defense, it's both gold and shiny

Now granted, you may tilt your head and question this claim of mine, stating: "Strange-blog-writer-who-swears-much-too-often, why do you think this makes you a massive nerd? Plenty of people in today's world reserve games and pick them up on release. Hell, plenty of people even go to midnight releases for games nowadays." To you, strange reader, I would like to make you aware that I cannot hear you and you would be better off typing that query that stating it aloud. But I digress. You see, strange reader, I did not merely reserve and pick up said game on release but I also, for starters, picked up the collector's edition with the gold controller.

No real gold was harmed in the making of this controller.

Now again, you may state that that's not too bad in itself, to which I'll simply admit that I also listened to the included music CD on my drive home. I listened the fuck out of that CD, and when the Spirit Tracks theme came on during the medley, I fake tooted an imaginary train whistle in my car, just like I would always do in game.

Toot toot, motherfucker.

Anyways, in stating just how much of a massive nerd I am, I feel I've perhaps lost my train of thought with my original point about this game. Now granted, stating I've "lost my train of thought" in my thinking truly just makes me want to post another image of Spirit Tracks, but I'll hold myself together, and try to avoid that horrible pun just because I love you guys so much.

Seriously guys, I'm quite sorry for derailing the original topic at hand. I'll be sure not to go off track again.

Now, having played my fair share of Skyward Sword by this point, having owned it for almost two weeks, I must admit that there's been a few things in the game that have caught my attention. As with any Zelda, the game play in Skyward Sword is amazing, the graphics and artwork are beautiful, and the story has it's fair share of interesting twists and turns. That being said, I'm not here to talk to you about any of that, my dear readers. I'm here today to talk to you about something from this game which is much, much more serious.

I'm here to talk to you about spousal abuse in the land of Skyloft.

It's always the quiet ones...

You see, in this game, unlike most other games in the series, when Link meets Zelda she is not even yet royalty. As the idea of a Zelda not born of royalty is a rather new one in the Zelda series, the game creators could have taken this in a lot of different directions. They could have simply made Zelda a fellow Skyloft academy student. They could have made her long time childhood friends with Link. They could have made a smart, pretty and assertive girl with musical talent. In the end, however, Nintendo decided not to simply make Zelda one of these personalities, but, instead, to make Zelda a homicidal maniac who masquerades as all three of the above personalities at once. Over the course of the first half hour of the game, Zelda intentionally shoves you off of cliffs twice. She acts innocent enough about it and even "saves you" herself the first time she does it, but granted, I have a hard time truly considering her having "saved" Link considering she was the one who put him in danger in the first place. Surely if I took a friend to a pond and held their head underwater until they passed out, then I quickly carried them to safety, performed CPR and saved them, I wouldn't be marked a hero. Yet, somehow, friends of mine who have played this game state that Zelda's behavior is okay, merely because she doesn't actually allow link to die. In my opinion, one of the scariest things is that you don't necessarily know she doesn't let Link die. There's been plenty of different "Link"s over the span of the series, and just because you don't die by Zelda's hand over the course of the game doesn't mean Zelda hasn't killed several Links in the past.

I believe Zelda just lets them pile up down at the surface. No one goes down there anyways.

After having shoved you off two cliffs, I started to think maybe Zelda was becoming overcome by guilt. She starts to act a little nicer and more concerned about you. Pretty soon you get to a point where Zelda smiles at you and pulls you in, supposedly for a kiss. At least, that's what it looks like she's planning, but if you believe that's what she does, you'd be wrong.

This is the last thing you see before being shoved off a 50 foot tall statue.

Now granted, not long after this point in the game, you come across a section which kicks your main adventure into action once Zelda gets blown away in a tornado. My real question, playing the game, was why doesn't your adventure end right here? If Link were to go about his every day life at this point, and not tell anyone what happened to Zelda, he could finally start going to the academy each day without having to make excuses about how he "fell down the stairs". He'd be able to relax and live a happy, healthy and carefree life. Hell, this game is meant to be a prequel of the series, and at this point nothing is even threatening the lives of the townspeople up in Skyloft. The whole series could have ended right there.

And the master sword sleeps... forever!

Instead, Link decides, for whatever reason, to inform the townspeople of what happened to Zelda and to personally go off on an adventure to find her, thus kicking off the game. Now, granted, I haven't played the game to it's completion, but from how the game began, I can only imagine the game ending in one possible way. And it isn't pretty.

Seriously, this is some pretty fucking crazy, ass shit.

Flash forward to the end of the game. Link finds Zelda and frees her from whatever danger she's in. Zelda smiles and looks around for cliffs, only to note that they're in a room that is completely level. Zelda, in a seemingly nice display of kindness, goes to hug link, only to grab his shield off his back and REPEATEDLY BASH HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH THE GODDAMN THING until he goes unconscious. Link wakes up to Zelda's smiling face up in Skyloft. Zelda and the rest of the townspeople live in peace and prosperity for the rest of their days, while Link loses his memory and forgets how much of a BATSHIT CRAZY BITCH Zelda is. As a result, Link passes down to his ancestors that Zelda saved his life and that it is their responsibility to protect her and her lineage for the rest of their days. And thus Nintendo's epic "family friendly" series full of spousal abuse comes to it's beginning.