#loz criticism
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To my fellow totk haters (people who started off mildly annoyed with the game's flaws, who then progressed into full on rage as almost everybody else seemed to love it): What did you most dislike about the game? If you can't decide, what were the biggest problems you had? What changes would you like to make?
This can be anything from gentle constructive criticism to a full on rage induced rant; I want to hear your thoughts, whichever form they may take!
#totk critical#totk criticism#tears of the kingdom criticism#Tears of the kingdom critical#loz critical#loz criticism#absolutely METICULOUS about my tagging here to get to everybody's filters#Don't want to send a totk hate masterpost into people's searches lmao
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the world has felt a little overwhelming recently so i started a new botw save and it helped a bit :)
(happy 7th birthday to my most beloved game of all time 🤍)
#going back to my roots (drawing link). feels good feels organic i feel sane again#happy 7th anniversary to The greatest game ever and no i will not take criticism#breath of the wild#botw#legend of zelda#loz#zelda#link#zelda fanart#botw fanart#fanart#nintendo#digital art#procreate
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a lot of people have already pointed out how totk has a lot of themes of imperialism and generally leans conservative ideologically, but what i think is interesting is how totk subtly redefines what a “researcher” is.
zelda wants to be a researcher in botw, and what this means in the context of botw is largely someone who works with sheikah technology. she wants to figure out ancient sheikah tech, she has an interest in botany and otherwise nature and biology (the whole silent princess and the frog thing), robbie and purah, the two characters who are the closest to us seeing what a researcher in the context of botw is are basically inventors. in totk, however, the main researchers who are presented to us are all historians.
this is an interesting pivot, because in botw zelda is not really interested in history. if anything, the one who’s deeply concerned with history is rhoam, wanting to preserve historical tradition and his uncritical reliance on said tradition and historical precedent is what leads them to their doom. in botw, zelda is narratively opposed to history, if anything, all the ancient tech backfires on them and traditions fail to awaken zelda’s power. zelda’s urge to be a researcher is in wanting to understand the world around her, not just blindly follow ancient plans but rather have agency within them.
totk, however, is obsessed with ancient plans. the only real moment where zelda gets to geek out in totk is her getting all giddy about finding out more about the divine origins of hyrule. all the researchers in the game are concerned with finding out more about the zonai. since all the mentions of ancient sheikah technology are scrubbed from the game purah and robbie read more as strange outliers, the sheikah slate is no longer, now it’s the purah pad, a product of purah rather than something larger. the whole game is literally about following an ancient plan, a plan most characters don’t fully understand as they sign up for it. totk’s main story is built on confusion, on the characters not knowing what’s fully going on but having faith in ancient sages telling them what to do. in botw, following ancient plans you don’t fully understand was the thing that doomed you. in totk, following ancient plans you don’t fully understand is the gimmick.
that juxtaposition between the two games has an ideological through line: botw posits that progress is necessary. mindlessly relying on tradition doesn’t work. prophecies are omens, not instructions. history must be learnt from, not repeated. the ancient sheikah aren’t a group to be emulated, but rather to be learnt from, considering their machinery backfired and the royal family betrayed them. totk, however, is obsessed with the mythical history of hyrule, a time where everything was idyllic until one bad man showed up, a time we must emulate in order to win. i already talked about how the past in totk is zelda’s life pre calamity but better here, but that also plays into the idolisation of that era and its royalty. in botw, even the myth of the first calamity preserves the fact that the yiga clan has origins in the royal’s family persecution of the sheikah, even the time when they successfully held back the calamity is tinged with mistakes that still affect the world ten thousand years later. in totk, ganondorf’s origins are nebulous. nobody provoked him, nobody did anything wrong, he’s just evil because he is.
a lot of right wing ideologies are hinged on preservation, but more than that: the belief in the nebulous mythical past in which everything was better. “make america great again”, the fascist’s idolisation of ancient rome which is represented largely inaccurately, look at any conservative rhetoric and you’ll see people complaining about how things nowadays are ruined or are being ruined, how in the past things were this way and they’re not anymore, which is bad. the belief in the fact that in some past period we were great and are not anymore, and the strive to emulate that past is a trait highly typical of right wing ideologies. and in totk the past as a great era is an idea presented completely uncritically, the narrative is entirely controlled by the game and doesn’t dwell on any of the inconsistencies in this idea.
now, obviously, not every story in which a great ancient era exists is fascist, right wing or conservative. but to me what’s interesting specifically in totk is this shift between the two games: botw is critical of the past. it’s critical of arrogantly repeating history, it’s critical of having blind faith in great relics of the past. totk isn’t. totk idolizes the past, totk tells legends and tells you to believe them without any doubts. botw believes researchers are those who seek to understand the world, innovate it and solve problems without relying on ancient ways. totk believes researchers are those who discover ancient instructions, ancient ways and relay them to great men in the present to be followed. the four mainline regional quests in botw are about discovering four ancient relics that are terrorising the land and fixing the mistakes of the past. the four mainline regional quests in totk are about discovering four ancient legends are true, and receiving instructions from an ancient sage on what to do.
totk is not simply neutral, it is ideologically conservative in stark contrast to botw, because of the things it chooses to leave uncriticised, notably the things botw was very poignant about examining critically. the way totk redefines what is a researcher is indicative of this, indicative of the way it chooses to idolize or present as an unexamined good that which was nuanced in botw. totk isn’t just conservative in the sense that it presents uncritically a “good king” and “evil conquerer”, it goes deeper, it’s notable because botw was starkly opposed to the thematic axioms totk presents.
i just think it’s very interesting that they made a sequel to botw, and completely redefined or otherwise ignored botw’s thematic core.
#totk critical#loz#botw#totk#legend of zelda#tears of the kingdom#breath of the wild#meta#analysis#my hot takes
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this is matthew mercer’s world and we’re just living in it
#he wasn’t in eurovision obvs but you get it#matthew mercer#critical role#tears of the kingdom#the ravening war#dimension 20#loz#totk#d20#cr#shut up becca
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Another voice pushes into your head, like a bat out of hell
(text free version below cut)
#why yes I did listen to this section like five times to get a rough transcript I regret nothing#critical role#cr3#cr3 spoilers#c3e86#bells hells#imogen temult#orym of the air ashari#jester lavorre#loz draws
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he's got.... more. earrings
im going to be very very normal about this game
#link#legend of zelda tears of the kingdom#tears of the kingdom#totk#loz totk#breath of the wild#eiji aonuma really said link WILL be a snack and NO i dont take criticism
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Orientalism, The Gerudo, and Legend of Zelda | SWANA Representation in Gaming
It took a while, but here's a video essay about the portrayal of the Gerudo and the ways they reinforce orientalist beliefs about SWANA people, the portrayal of the Gerudo, and the broader storytelling implications that come about because of it.
The land and society once owned by the gods must be restored and brought to its former glory as it is fated to be led by the divinely chosen Hylians, the chosen descendants tied to the gods. To that end, to defeat the evil and violent Middle Easterner who has defied the natural order of Hyrule, everyone must sacrifice themselves for Link to become the divine governor of power.
Sections in the Video:
What is Racial Coding? (The Deku and Cannibal Horror)
Orientalism
Ganondorf - The Wicked Man of the Desert
Sav'aaq: Colorism and the Othering of the Gerudo
The "Good" Arab and the Conditional Humanity of the Gerudo
The Vai Outfit - Harems, Veiled Women, and Belly Dancers
Staggeringly Neutral - Link and the Gerudo as Queer Expression (Why James Somerton is wrong about the Gerudo)
Swapping and Shopping: Japanese Media
Orientalism of the Mummy - Dehydrated Ganon
The Native Zonai - The Source of the Right Arm
The Myth of Native Extinction
The Brown Body and the White Mind
Link Can Make it - Community Vs Saviorism
Divine Right to Rule
Japanese History and Zelda (Shinto in Zelda Lore)
Gameplay First - Zelda and Storytelling
Closing Thoughts
#tears of the kingdom#totk critical#gerudos#legend of zelda#wind waker#tloz#oot#majora's mask#deku scrub#loz goron#princess zelda#ganon#loz ganon#totk ganondorf#dehydrated ganon#tw: racism#tw: cannibalism#tw: transphobia#orientalism#antiblackness#misogynoir#media analysis#representation in gaming#zonai#totk rauru#king rauru#tetra#nabooru#totk riju#urbosa
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I'M SORRY. MATT MERCER, DID YOU LAND FUCKING GANONDORF?!?!?!
#Matt Mercer#Critical Role#cr#totk#zelda totk#loz#legend of zelda#Tears of the Kingdom#Ganondorf#Ganon#Zelda#Update: HE DID!!!!!!
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happy four based based on what tuesday everybody, now here's enough for the rest of the week and then some
#i've been wanting to do this for so long i just couldn't find the template- UNTIL NOW#linked universe#lu#loz#i don't feel like tagging everyone but i will because. i like organization i guess#lu wind#lu sky#lu hyrule#lu time#lu four#lu warriors#lu twilight#lu wild#lu legend#i'm right btw they would all say this i don't take criticism
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#critical role#robbie daymond#marisha ray#liam o'brien#emily axford#omar najam#matt mercer#matthew mercer#loz oneshot
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So, despite some faults, I really enjoyed totk, and on its anniversary I want to say something about it. Other people have said similar things before but it’s really important to me and actually a big part of why the story of totk was meaningful to me, so I want to also say it:
Zelda needed to come back from draconification. The story needed that. It wasn’t lazy and just ignoring “consequences” because (imo) that was the *point*
The point is to feel like there are going to be terrible consequences and then say actually, no. You can come back from this, with the help of other people.
To me at least, that was the theme of the whole story.
If botw was about how the world goes on past loss and grief and starts to heal (how flowers grow in the ruins and the world can be beautiful again, be worth saving, even if it has changed)…then totk was about a more personal kind of healing.
The weight of the world should not be on your shoulders alone…you, alone, should not have to fix everything…you should not have to sacrifice yourself, but when you do, someone will be there to save you from it.
This turned into a really long ramble so:
You (Link) gained so much and now it’s gone. It feels like you’re back to where you started and yet you know you have to do it all again…you were weak and you failed and you’re weaker now…but
You go down to the surface. Monsters swarm across it once again. Other people are fighting them too though. You help, but it’s not just you…
You go to the Rito, the Gorons, the Zora, the Gerudo…just like with the divine beasts, there are friends who help you save each region. But this time, part of them comes along with you when you leave. It’s nice, you realize, the first time one of them protects you from a monster you weren’t prepared for. You’re still weaker than you were before, but someone has your back…
When you go up to the sky you see a strange new dragon there. There’s something about them that feels familiar. You try not to think about it.
You go down to the depths too. It’s terrifying at first. You hate it. You only want to get what you came for and get out of the dark….but slowly, the light grows. You get stronger. The dark feels like a challenge you can face (and someone has your back).
There are spirits down there. You don’t know when they’re from, but some part of you wonders…are these all the people you let die in the Calamity? (You help them find rest from their wandering. The weight on your shoulders feels a little less heavy).
There’s so much gloom. The first few times the sky turns red and hands chase you (a reminder of what you’ve lost, how you failed) you just run. Eventually though, you have to fight. It feels like the (second) worst day of your life again. But you manage to get free of the grasping gloom and stand and fight, as wild and desperate as it is. Beneath the manifestation of your worst fears, there’s another thing to fight, but this time it has a face (a voice in the back of your head says…you know this isn’t all on you and your failure…it’s really Ganon’s fault right?). You get through it.
At every turn in your travels, it seems like something reminds you of Zelda. Her passion, her curiosity, her kindness. You miss her.
At first, the tears you find reassure you. She may be in the past, but she’s safe. She’ll come back somehow…but then you hear the word draconification for the first time. You want to believe she wouldn’t do it but you know her and the fear sits cold inside you. (Zelda is a lot of things. She’s been allowed to be more of them, since she was freed from her hundred year battle, without her father holding her back. But deep down inside her, there’s a vein of self-sacrifice that still runs strong. It’s what saved the world before, after all).
She did it. She really did it. She’s gone from you (from Hyrule) forever, and it’s all your fault. If only you hadn’t failed so utterly in the battle (you can hardly even call it that) under the castle. If only you’d caught her. If only you hadn’t let the sword break. You should have protected her you should have been better it’s all your fault and now she has to live with the consequences, forever. Everything really is on you, you should have been better.
(Zelda POV: you couldn’t call upon Hylia’s power in time, you were too content to let it wither and fade away from you, ready to be free of it. You shouldn’t have. He got hurt, the sword got hurt, it’s your fault…Sonia and Rauru help you channel it again, Sonia helps you learn how to turn back time���but you don’t save her. She dies because you couldn’t save her. Rauru dies not long after. There is no one left to guide you, once again. You could spend years trying to figure it out on your own. But you did that last time. It didn’t work. Self-sacrifice, stepping in front of someone you love, that worked. (You do what you can, to call upon the sages, to help Link in the future, first). And then you swallow the stone. You’ve come a long way, in the past five years, allowing yourself to exist. But in the end, self-sacrifice worked last time. It’ll work this time too.)
You (Link) go down beneath the castle. You were supposed to bring the sages but you didn’t. It’s nice, for someone to have your back. But no one else should get hurt to fix your mistakes.
They follow you anyway. They fight with you, against the hordes, against the greatest enemies you defeated together, along the way. They’ll have your back, even if you don’t think you deserve it.
You fight Ganondorf, and then the demon king, in the hardest battle of your life. You think it’s over and then the demon king decides it’s better to lose himself completely than let you win. You’re exhausted and afraid of yet another battle, but up there in the sky, when you’re falling, the Light Dragon catches you (you wonder why she changed her path to catch you, you wonder if there’s still something of Zelda left in there to save). With her help, you win.
And then you’re in some other realm. The spirits of Sonia and Rauru are there. You remember how the two of them and Zelda channeled such incredible power together. You think about Recall. Turning something back to the memory of what it was before, like Sonia said. You stand with them and you allow yourself to hope. Maybe the Light Dragon can remember the form she took so long ago, the person that she was.
And then you’re falling, and Zelda is falling, but this time you catch her. You catch her. She’s back home with you, finally, finally.
And maybe, one mistake doesn’t have to be the end of the world. You don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes, someone else can stand with you, and it’ll all turn out alright. (You can put the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can sacrifice yourself, but someone will be there to catch you, someone will be there to pull you back to yourself, when all is said and done).
#loz#tears of the kingdom#Link#Zelda#I will say also that I think part of the reason totk is special to me is very personal#like when it came out I was still struggling with the worst burnout of my life#I had had a few months of exhaustion between January and March and in May that exhaustion was still sticking to me#it was hard to get out of bed hard to do anything I felt so tired that I almost felt sick but I wasn’t sick#and the thing is Zelda games are my biggest special interest#and having a new one to play like genuinely I’m not joking it gave me bsck so much energy#I was doing really badly but when totk came out I played it for an entire weekend straight basically#and like my mom came to visit me and help me out with basic life stuff#and like sit with me while I played just like enjoying being together#and that was really nice#over that summer and the fall after I started getting to know someone I work with better#largely over conversations about totk at first#and they’ve become a good friend#(and become someone that I feel safe to be fully myself around)#and so I just have this really strong personal connection to totk#like I will not claim to be impartial about it#there are definitely criticisms that I can acknowledge#in particular I don’t like that they un-amputeed Link let Link be disabled#and also ganondorf’s characterization was shallow and one dimensional#and I’m sure there’s other things I could think of#but the overall narrative#including Zelda becoming the light dragon and then turning back in the end#I really like that#it felt like a narrative of healing to me#and playing it at the time that I did felt really healing to me too
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Insane to me that in BOTW you are asked to question the validity of tradition and the powers that govern through it. Whether relying solely on beliefs of ancestors from thousands of years ago should still be upheld despite overwhelming proof that it's not working. Through Princess Zelda you see just how constricting and cruel tradition can be when one doesn't fit the mold of its requirements and how it can utterly destroy someone's sense of value to themselves and to the world around them. It asks "How many like her have come before? How many Zeldas who, by the misfortune of being born in a peaceful era, never got the same opportunity for freedom in the same way that this Zelda does? Ironic that the Calamity became the very thing that freed Zelda from the confines of Tradition."
And then ToTK turns around, looks you in the eyes and says "Actually tradition is very Important and Good and The Only Thing that stands in the way of Pure Evil. Go on this quest centered around praising ancestors past and mimic their tragically lost influence to Bring Peace and Happiness to everyone!! Also Zelda's character growth involves becoming the picture perfect Ideal of the very thing that made the majority of her life utterly miserable because now she's Perfect and isnt that divine? Definitely don't think about the tragic implications that has lore wise since it tells you that no matter how unique you may be, you will eventually become exactly like the rest from ages past. Anyways go kill a Lynel!!"
#zelda criticism#zelda totk#tears of the kingdom#breath of the wild#botw#zelda botw#princess zelda#totk spoilers#totk critical#totk criticism#botw critical#botw criticism#the legend of zelda#zelda meta#totk meta#loz totk#loz botw#loz
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the depths conceptually:
- an exciting new way to interact with the environment, transforming and extending botw’s exciting feeling of exploration by literally making the player uncover the world from the darkness as they navigate it
the depths in reality:
- using the darkness as an excuse to make the environment drab and boring; extremely formulaic, to the point of being predictable; combination of these two factors leads to the player shifting their engagement from exploration to instead predicting where loot/gameplay element/lightroot might be and making their way there through a largely bland environment
conceptually:
- a whole new opportunity for environmental storytelling and general lore; great potential to play a part in the story and explore remnants of an ancient civilisation
reality:
- a deeply underdeveloped and empty location; little to no opportunity to discuss or find out elements of story; lore-wise doesn’t seem to go beyond “we were mining here”; in places used purely as a dumping ground for gameplay challenges (like the coliseums and boss battles) with little to no diegetic explanation
conceptually:
- a whole new aesthetic lean to contrast with the surface and the sky islands, an opportunity to create new beautiful biomes and environments with a unique atmosphere
reality:
- the colours are dominated by grey with only a few outcroppings of colour; the world design is almost identical in every part of the map, all equally unexciting; once the novelty wears off the environment offers nothing to look at, everything is muted and boring and copy pasted;
yeah i don’t like the depths guys
#loz#botw#legend of zelda#totk#tears of the kingdom#totk critical#the endless cycle of going back onto tumblr to see if i can talk about smth fun seeing my own totk posts#and getting brain worms again#my hot takes
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There must be so much pressure on Matt Mercer to perform well as Ganondorf. This is a character that fans have known for literal decades. So it’s important that he nails the characterisation and gets it right. One could say this is a really…critical role
#this is so fucking dumb i could not type this without breaking#cr#critical role#loz#zelda#totk#ganondorf#nintendo#loz tears of the kingdom#tears of the kingdom#1k#my stuff
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The moment when you nope out of a bad situation by banishing yourselves to a harmless demi-plane
#critical role#cr3#bells hells#cr3e85#cr3 spoilers#fearne calloway#fresh cut grass#the episodes have been sooo crazy lately I love it#loz draws
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god i hate how the gerudo in totk are practically framed as though they constantly require hylian intervention to succeed… the way riju’s introduction stands out as the only one where she struggles to use her power until link comes along… the way link is chosen to decide how they should station the gerudo troops when fighting off the gibdos… the fact that one npc mentions how when zelda had visited she had somehow taught them new ways to fight in their own terrain, which should hopefully be obviously fucked up… the way the eighth heroine was revealed to have been a male hylian who came along and told the other gerudo heroines how to fight against their enemy… ugh ugh ugh
#salty talks#loz#legend of zelda#totk#the riju one can be brushed aside as introducing how her power works in gameplay but like with everything else?#plus shes the only sage mentioned to have not figured their power up and like. anyone with a bow can help link aint special#i. hate how the gerudo are both portrayed as strong warrior women but also helpless without this specific kind of outside help#totk critical#god i fucking hate what was done with the gerudo in totk amazing how nintendo has not improved since fucking 1998#thers prob more but UGH#bitching abt totk
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