If Link is supposed to be an avatar for the player, would customizable Link (gender, skin tone, hair color, eye color) be a cool addition?

Okay, I guess my first metaphor was off. But prejudice? Really? I'm not sexist toward women - I'm a girl myself, thank you very much - and I don't think I mentioned or referenced anything about cross-breeding or same sex couples. (Cross-breeding? What? When did I...WHAT?)

I admit I haven't done my research on the exact limits, but men are physically stronger than women, and no man can defeat a Goron without iron boots. Besides, I get the distinct feeling Gorons are a manly man race. I don't see the Gorons having a sworn sister thing going on, or offering to sumo wrestle with a girl. You could definitely have the girl be just THAT tough and force them to accept her by proving herself, but I really hate stories where a girl has to prove herself to men...it feels patronizing. Besides, do you really want to have to play through that before getting to the dungeon?

As for Ruto, I specifically said that she expected Link to be gentlemanly, because he's a man, and blahblahblah spoiled princess expectations. If she was into girls, she'd still be that spoiled little princess with expectations about knights in shining armor or whatever stories the Zoras tell their kids. If Link was a girl, she wouldn't treat him the same way, period. And if she didn't have those expectations, she'd be completely different anyway.

People wouldn't be able to flirt with him convincingly if they had to change the dialogue so it would fit both men and women, straight and homo, etc.. Of course, they could change the characters for whether or not you decide to be a guy or a girl, but that would make two separate universes in which each character is a different person, says different things and likes different things. Kinda like in Termina, only it's not in-story, it's in the game-play. I personally like how each Zelda game has its own stories and its own characters and even connect to each other, and it wouldn't feel right if half the people out there had experienced a whole different character to the name Ruto or Malon or whoever. That's like if I was talking about Doctor Who with someone and they thought the Doctor was some kind of dimension hopping old man in an RV.

Oh, and about how you said everyone can be happy so long as Link looks the same, that's really not the case. I don't know the percentages or what, but I'm positive at least half the fanbase would agree with me in saying the story and characters are somewhat important to the experience. If Link was an avatar with no character what-so-ever, the Legend of Zelda games would basically be handed over to another fanbase, because people like me would be waiting perpetually until we could get back to the legend we were promised by the title. No one would take a story where, say, Zues was a woman and... I dunno, Artemis was a man seriously. (If you're willing to compare legends to myths)


...

Okay, not part of the argument, but-prejudice? Really? Please, I've grown up surrounded by things that would have me prejudice against men if I hadn't actually put thought into the fact that my favorite books are written by men. (Therefore men aren't all idiots and blahlblahblech.) And how the heck did you come to the conclusion that I was against same sex relationships? How did you make it even slightly about that? (For the record, I don't have that prejudice either.) I mean really. And assuming I have those biases at all? Just assuming, not, I don't know, putting a little room in your argument for my not being a sexist homophobic male? Maybe an option? Good grief.

Irritated rant over. You can ignore it if you like.

/r/zelda Thread Parent