The Legend of Hermeneutics (teaser)
by existential calvinist on 2007年08月04日 10:01 AM
@ Home / HelloWorldProject / ENTRY37 (edit, history)
I submitted a chapter to be included in The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy. In order to get people to buy the book, I’ve been told not to post the chapter here, but I don’t think the publisher will mind a quick excerpt from the introduction in order to whet people’s appetites. Expect an update and an Amazon link when I know the publishing date for the book. Until then, feel free to email about a pre-release version of the chapter if you know me in real life or solemnly promise to buy the book when it’s available.
All of the games in the Legend of Zelda series share certain similarities. There are puzzles, monsters and dungeons; there is an evil to be vanquished; and most of all there is the rich mythos of Hyrule and its hero in green. It is natural then to think that these games are meant to be related to one another. However, due to various statements made in the games—such as A Link to the Past’s stating at its conclusion the Master Sword rested forever—it cannot be the case the order that the games were released is the chronological order of events in the Zelda universe. Until recently, the die-hard Zelda fan base was firmly split into two opposing camps concerning the relationship between different games in the series. On the one side were those who felt that all the stories in the Zelda universe could be treated as taking place in a single linear timeline and on the other side were those who felt that the conclusion to Ocarina of Time split the timeline into two parallel tracks, one following from the “adult ending” and one following from the “child ending.” Both sides of the issue produced elaborate explanations of how the different games fit together by drawing up various bits of evidence from within the games and from comments by developers. The battle between the “splitists” and “linearists” was fierce until it was finally laid to rest by an interview comment from director Eiji Aonuma in the December 2006 issue of Japan’s Nintendo Dream magazine. In the interview, Aonuma states that The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess story lines should be seen as taking place in parallel worlds branching out of the time traveling ending of Ocarina of Time. Fan reaction to the interview was intense, and though many fans questioned the quality of the translation for the interview or even the authority of Aonuma, in the end, group opinion came around and now the split timeline is widely (if grudgingly) accepted as the consensus view of the history of the Zelda universe.
The nature of this debate raises several interesting questions, not the least of which is, why do fans expect that the games of the Legend of Zelda series can be placed into any kind of unified framework at all? Why are fans driven to make complex charts explaining how they see the various games linking up? Why do they scour in-game text and developer interviews for clues about the relationship between the games? Can it be that by going to these elaborate lengths, Zelda fans have created a new game on top of the Zelda series that is filled with puzzles almost as rich and complex as those found in the games themselves? This is the Legend of Hermeneutics…