Selflessness & Cincinnatus in Ocarina of Time
Part 1 of Taking Something Far too Seriously
The following is the first part of two discussing angles of interpreting Ocarina of Time. And this is also the first in a biweekly series of essays about art, myth, video games, comics, history, and the connecting philosophies throughout. It is pure self-indulgence and I can’t begin to imagine an audience for it.
Hyrule is good.
Overshadowing the combat and puzzles of any Legend of Zelda game is a fixed axiom: Hyrule is good and must be restored.
Ocarina of Time, released in 1998, is no outlier to this unquestioned conception of Hyrule’s good. In fact, it may be the ultimate example, as within its narrative Hyrule is so visibly marred –bearing the consequences of evil’s creeping presence in each of its self-contained worlds. Link’s former home in the Kokiri forest is riddled with monsters and too perilous for its childlike inhabitants. Death Mountain now spits fire and deadly debris, and Lake Hylia is drained. Nothing remains of the pristine lake but rocky pits and a puddle at the depths of the lake.
The task placed upon Link, and by consequence the player, is to restore the good that had been corrupted. The Legend of Zelda series emphasizes both the corruption, and its means of restoration, as the actions of individual characters. Ganondorf is responsible for the corruption of Hyrule, and does so in order to place himself at the seat of power, even if the prize he rules over is merely a desolate wasteland.
In contrast to the virulent selfishness of Ganondorf that would see his own vision of power realized at the expense of all others, Link functions in the precise opposite manner. Within the narrative, the game calls little attention to the selfless actions of its protagonist. And aside from a mid-game reveal that he is, in fact, Hylian, Link has no real tie or allegiance to the land in which he lives. As an orphan, he existed in isolation in the Kokiri forest, with seemingly little understanding or care for the world outside apart from his own troubling dreams of a coming evil. The Great Deku Tree summons the then-ten-year-old-boy and places the responsibility for curing the tree of a parasitic evil that has infiltrated its body. Upon his success and the tree’s subsequent death, Link is set out on a journey to complete a quest to which he bears no responsibility.
Link never protests. And any hostile critic could point out easily that the game likely does this because, as a video game, Link’s endless protests about the unfairness of the quest, or perhaps an option that allows the player to reject the call and simply end the game from that point, would make for a rather weak entry into the canon of the video game medium. To that point I won’t argue. Instead, what I would insist is that the effect of even a practical mechanic contributes to the aesthetics and story a game will tell. The player’s ultimate control of a stoic Link who willingly gives up the comfort of his life to, without complaint, take on the responsibilities of an entire kingdom to which he has only a tenuous connection meets the strictest definition of selflessness. He enacts the restoration of this kingdom with only minor help from a handful of characters, like Sheik/Zelda or Rito, or even fixes the mistakes of those who have previously tried and failed such as Darunia in the Fire Temple.
Upon completing his task, Link receives words of gratitude from Zelda, who then returns him to his own time where his acts of selfless heroism are forgotten. In the closing credits of the game, Link restores the Master Sword to its pedestal within the Temple of Time. Navi, the fairy who has stayed with him as a companion for the whole of the game, departs from the tower of the Temple. Link walks off the platform, leaving the Master Sword behind as the bells toll, giving the player a restrained yet emotional climax wherein –even as a child– I was bewildered by the lack of fanfare for the boy who had just single handedly saved the world.
In Ocarina of Time more than any other game in the Legend of Zelda series, Link takes the role of Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, upon request, took the reigns of power for the Republic to navigate it through crisis and then willingly laid it down at the close of conflict to return to his farm. The story, and possibly legend, of Cincinnatus is a timeless reminder of an ideal management of power. Cincinnatus (twice) receives the mantle of dictatorship, and twice gives it up after it has been used in service to others.
Link serves an equal function, though with some modification. Link’s power is not awarded by virtue of a collective affirmation and does not come in the form of the command of others. Instead, his power falls into the categories of strength (combat) and wisdom (puzzles) and is awarded by the natural state of yet another game mechanic: Link is the sole character with agency.
Unique to video games as opposed to other media where the roles of each character in the story are utterly fixed, Link is controlled by the player, and that ultimately provides the means to his given powers. Players navigate the combat and puzzles that stand between the corrupt and the restored states of Hyrule. And while I know that yet again this may sound like misplaced seriousness –applying a symbolic value to an element within a work with a purely practical motive– I’m of the conviction that this unique factor of video games requires special attention, as it is the primary distinguishing trait of this medium over any other. And its aesthetic and narrative effects are felt at every stage of the experience that games provide. It is noticeable, when tromping about through Hyrule, that other characters are of a different nature than yourself as the player. There is no sense of equality between you and they, whereas characters in other narrative media are of a uniform nature. We understand that they are fictional, but any internally coherent narrative seeks to establish continuity of characters that fix them into the same world and grant them an equal sense of agency, although some will obviously utilize it more than others.
Most single player video games are forced to reckon with an enormous gap in the nature of its characters. One has agency within the boundaries of the created universe (one cannot simply run off the map or solve a puzzle in any way –there are limitations), but the other characters have either no agency, or it’s tightly restricted. They are confined to particular paths and actions, usually providing a means for the player to achieve small success that functions as the whole purpose of the non-playing character.
Thus, Link is truly unique in his capacity to effect change in the world. This is his equivalent to attaining the power of Cincinnatus’ dictatorship (entrusted total power), as Link is the sole agent capable of solving the problem and activating the various quests provided by the other characters in Hyrule. Quite fittingly, not only does the story resolve Link’s contributions by his departure at the end of the credits, but upon the defeat of the final boss, control is wrested from the player as well. First in the form of diminished capacity (simply hitting the ‘A’ button to proceed through dialogue) until the player is left with a “The End” screen that allows no further option than to power off the system itself.
Ocarina of Time presents the player with the opportunity to enact the role of the selfless character who wields a unique and universal power, and then as potently symbolized by the return of the Master Sword to its pedestal, to give up that power and fade into obscurity. This image of the leader as servant who uses power for the good of others echoes throughout all of history, from Plato’s Republic, Roman stories of Cincinnatus, Christ washing the feet of His disciples (and His ultimate sacrificial death) and even George Washington (surrendering power at the end of two terms and setting a precedent distinguishing president from king) speaks to a deeply ingrained moral concept of which Ocarina of Time is hardly the initiator, but rather another in a long history of depicting the ideal use of power: its surrender.
I read through the whole thing. I myself study philosophy and like to apply it in ways that would easily be considered "silly". I applied Thomistic Thought to "true love's first kiss", or rather, whether the act of kissing could cause the apprehension of one's true love. Okay, it was meant to be a joke assignment, but the teacher at that time thought it was deep... joke fail.
All that to say, I found your unusual subject of reflection thoughtful. It makes the point more memorable. Good money message: Those most able to take up power are only those that who are able to lay it down again. I have seen this theme in other contexts: only those who know how to serve know how to lead; or again, true leaders are those who do not command what they themselves would never do or have never done (Cato of Rome was said to have said something like this).
Your conclusion is also an excellent and timeless plot device, something I made sure to write down to temper my own ideas.
Looking forward to future posts and the completion of the second Volume.
Pax Dei, Αρηνη Θεου