Moving on after something terrible happens is a hard thing to do. All of us have experienced this. It can be easy to get under tragedy instead of getting over it, but learning to move on from things is one of the biggest challenges you experience growing up. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is by far the best example of this, and I’ll explain why in this post.
Growing Up Gay
For me, the hardest thing that happened to me during my childhood was when I discovered that I’m gay. I spent the first 20 years of my life in this very conservative town in Arizona. Realizing that I was gay was also the realization that I did not belong in my hometown. For me, it was social condemnation, and something that would ruin my chances to make friends and get jobs. It was a tragedy for me at the time. (Now I’m a pretty happy gay dude, don’t worry guys.)
Finding Zelda
Around the same time, I sold most of my games to purchase The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was one of the few things I was looking forward to as an angsty teen. It was worth selling my beloved games for.
The world was gorgeous, and teeming with wild-life and neat things to check out. The graphics were really great, and perfectly complimented the atmosphere, soundtrack, and the world that it presented. The icing on the cake was the gameplay itself— wonderful. All of this just mixed together to create the perfect concoction. I look back on it now thinking that it’s the perfect game I could have played at the time.
Anyways, tragedy, and growing up gay- oh, the drama. I promise I’ll explain what all of this has to do with me being gay later on.
The Plot
(There are some spoilers ahead, so please tread carefully.)
Breath of the Wild’s plot sounds bombastic and loud on paper, but the truth is very different. The general premise of the game is that Hyrule, the country that the game takes place in, experienced a near apocalyptic event called the “Great Calamity” 100 years prior. Link, the protagonist, was put into stasis after these events, and now he’s awake and he’s lost his memories. Apparently, he was Princess Zelda’s appointed knight, and it was his job to keep her safe. He sustained lethal injuries, and that’s why he was put into stasis. After, Princess Zelda went off to contain this apocalyptic disaster in the confines of Hyrule Castle. 100 years later, she’s been stuck keeping this thing at bay. Link, now amnesiac, has to find his lost memories so he can go to the castle to help Zelda get rid of this world-ending monstrosity.
The majority of the game is much quieter than this plot summary. Most of the time, you spend the game exploring Hyrule’s dilapidated ruins, overgrown footpaths and natural biomes. It’s peaceful. The people in Hyrule mostly keep to the towns and small settlements that have been preserved after the Great Calamity. Most folks weren’t even alive when it happened, so it’s just history to them.
Remembering What Once Was
Link is given full freedom to explore the land of Hyrule at his own pace. Taking the time to explore, fight monsters, hunt and forage, and discover his memories is downright relaxing.
Link is given a photo album with pictures taken prior to the Great Calamity, and memories are found by matching these photos with their modern counterparts. Most of the time, the location looks pretty similar to the photo, and Link recovers the events in his head after looking over the area.
Over the course of the game, Link rediscovers the tragedy that occurred 100 years ago, and remembers his friends and comrades who died protecting what they loved. With that, the player discovers that for the most part, people have moved on. The world has moved on. Wild life is teeming, and growing over the increasingly damaged remnants of the past, and people are getting on with their lives. Link, during all of this, rediscovers himself. He finds himself on this adventure to save someone who, at the start, is only an obligation, or maybe a lead on his past.
Growing After Tragedy
Despite all of this heavy stuff on his shoulders, Link grows with the world, and gets stronger and more experienced as he embarks on this journey. It is, in some ways, a coming of age story. Link is taught through his memories and through his current experiences how to deal with conflict and tragedy. Even the gameplay follows this, giving you plenty of solutions for problems besides just swinging a sword at them.
In the ending of the game, Link frees the spirits of his dead friends, and of course, saves the princess. That’s not really as striking as the final cutscene, which has Link and Zelda looking over Hyrule while discussing plans to restore Hyrule. Zelda comments that the two of them can restore Hyrule better than it was before the Great Calamity. She tells Link that she can no longer feel her powers, and that she could accept that. The camera pans out and rests on a field full of flowers called silent princess flowers, which are very rare flowers that supposedly stopped growing after the Calamity. Afterwards, the credits play. The end.
Well what does all of this have to do with growing up gay?
Like I said at the beginning of this post, moving on from tragedy is hard. Sometimes it can feel crushing, and difficult to get over. Discovering myself felt tragic to me during the time I played Breath of the Wild, and playing through the game was kind of therapeutic. Link’s epic battles with seemingly un-killable foes feel like a footnote compared to the weight that the themes and story had on my formative years.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece, and it was the best game for me to play at the time because it provided me with a sense of hope and growth. It taught me that I could move on from tragedy.
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