I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman. -Anais Nin
Protecting the Princess
The depth of misunderstanding with regards to Zelda's character continues to astound me. People seem to assume she's some sort of airhead ditz. The arguments against Zelda can pretty much be summed up as: She's a princess. Who wears pink.
This is really the spirit of all criticsms against her. The fact that you must rescue her, that she sometime acts helpless (she can't pick up that master sword, for example, when it would be pretty dang helpful) It is my not very humble opinion that all this can be traced back to the fact that she wears pink.
Pink is associated with femininity, and femininity in video games is associated with A) being a helpless princess and B) really large breasts. Zelda falls into the first type, but she, in Ocarina of Time, at least, rises above it. Here are some common charges levied against her.
She's a spoiled brat!
See, this is just foolish. There's absolutly no evidence that she's spoiled, aside from the fact that she's a princess and lives in a castle. But her castle is not the decadant affair of gold and ivory that marks the houses of the truly rich. Besides, she loses it all when she's forced to live in hiding for the majority of her teenage years. Spoiled indeed. Zelda's had a tougher life than most of us.
You have to rescue her!
Right, and it's her fault she gets kidnapped. That's like saying a rape victim deserves it. (And incidentally, every Zelda game features a DIFFERENT Zelda, so she doesn't get kidnapped over and over again, just the once.) Besides, Ganondorf has managed to royally screw the kingdom, and Zelda's done her fair share of rescuing in that time. Also, she wouldn't have revealed her true self if it weren't for Link. That's right, Link, I blame YOU! Bwahahahahahaha. (Kidding.)
She can't hand you the Master Sword!
This is pretty annoying, but maybe the game designers wanted to make the final battle more difficult?
But she wears PINK! PINK, for goodness sakes!
Yes, I know. It is a kind of tragedy, isn't it?
To me, all the insults leveled at Zelda can be explained away if you just give a good look into her character rather than her character design. People have this warped idea that a strong female character is one who is great at fighting. But that's really superficial. Lara Croft is a sex symbol and her appeal is based upon her large breasts and her ability to use guns. While that's a kind of kick-ass, it isn't a very deep one. Zelda, on the other hand, is, according to me at least, fierce and determined, manipulative, kind of cold-hearted, and emminently cool under pressure. She's central to the action of the game, and in a very real sense it revolves around her. And in Ocarina of Time, she knows this. Her power is based on something other than sex appeal, which is a welcome deviance from the status quo.
Besides, a concentrated ball of magic paired with high-heels and karate-style ninja kicks says that Zelda can fight just fine. Thank you, Super Smash Bros.